Datong

Well . . . to put it nicely, Jayde was not pleased when I told her that another train ride was in her future. I was determined to get off the beaten track. Who knows when we'll be back!

So . . . we caught a train to Datong. It was not supposed to be a long train ride (5 hours). But by the time we got to the train station, stood in line, the train ran late, and we found a hotel, the day was pretty much shot. Luckily we were prepared this time and had plenty of snickers, chips, and oreos to snack on. What we weren't prepared for was the staring. The waiting room for the train was packed and in complete chaos. We ended up sitting in line on the floor for an hour. We were the only blondes in the room. People were not shy about noticing either. They wouldn't stop looking even if we stared back. Between that and the little buzzing magnets that everyone was trying to sell, Jayde and I were pretty irritable. I thought Jayde was going to lose it when we found out we had to share our soft sleeper.

When we got there, Jayde wasn't feeling well. We got a room at the first hotel we found and went to sleep. The next morning I got up early to find drugs for Jayde and set up things for us to see the Yungang Caves and the Hanging Temple. Setting up the tour was no problem. There is a company in the train station that did everything. Finding a pharmacy and communicating what I wanted was another story. The wandering down the street looking for a drug store didn't really work, but I must have looked pathetic enough. A young boy asked me what I was looking for. I found the term in my dictionary and pointed it out to the boy (my attempts at pronouncing words has not worked well thus far). He walked me to the pharmacy, but it was closed. I stood out front, again looking pathetic. I explained that my sister was sick (again in my best attempt at Chinese). All those podcast Chinese lessons finally paid off. The woman let me in the store early and helpled me pick out medicine for Jayders. I got back to the room just in time to wake the beast. :)