xi'an

stepping out of the air-conditioned train station was like opening an oven door. i'm used to being in mid-thirty degree temperatures now, but the 80 to 90 percent humidity is just something else. good thing east asians famously don't have any BO. still, i only dared to leave the hostel room no earlier than 5pm, which still gave me enough time to explore the city a bit.

it had a really cool touristy center, again, completely packed with domestic tourists eager to take pictures with the blonde. as soon as you veer off the main tourist paths though, it gets less glamorous (and far more interesting) very quickly. in this case though, it was nice to just lean back and just follow the tourist flows for once.

that included, of course, emperor qinshihuang's mausoleum with the famous terra cotta army. i'm still not into history and the ticket price was pretty steep, but i might as well go while i'm there. i woke up before 6 to get to the museum as soon as it opened and avoid the masses, but others seemed to have had the same idea. at least i met a nice dutch couple on the bus and we went to the archeology site together, it was way more fun that way.

food was great, drinks were greater (i'm still not through all fanta flavours and can't believe we only get orange in germany), but my onward plans were jacked up quite a bit. i had planned to go to beijing and take a ferry from there, so i booked a train and hostel until, the night before i wanted to leave, i got an email that my train was cancelled. no problem, refunded and booked another one. cancelled again. and then again (i had to pay for the refund each time), until there were no more trains available the next three days, no real bus infrastructure, and too big of a distance to hitchhike. and time getting reeeaaal tight now.

i ended up scrapping the whole plan at 3am and looked for alternative cities to go to. the whole south is completely flooded, no train seats to any well-known cities left. i did some research and landed on hangzhou in the end, it's supposed to be great and only half an hour from shanghai. i'd have a day there and would then take another 20h train to another port city, where i'm hoping i can just show up to book a ferry to korea, because there is no online reservation. if i don't get the one on monday, my visa will run out. i'm optimistic though.Read more