Tom: Luoyang (June 11)

Luoyang (June 11) · Jun 14, 08:19 AM

At 06:30 I take a bus to Longting Park to exercise on the south side of a large lake in morning shade from a row of trees. Middle aged men a swimming in the lake. Old people sit around in the shade — a few are doing random Chinese exercises. I catch the bus back for a second breakfast — standard Chinese morning fare at a free buffet that came with my room. First breakfast was porrige and a fried fluffy breadstick on the street before I left for the park.

After breakfast I disappoint an English-speaking pedicab driver by walking off to run my errands on foot, but I please the hat-vendor from yesterday, paying the full Y10 for my red-trimmed, two-tone cowboy straw hat. And I tour another local sight — a restored merchants hall that feels more like a temple. I spend ninety minutes blogging and take a taxi to the western long-distance bus station, but they don’t have buses to Luoyang, so I hop into another cab to the southern long-distance bus station. It’s a hot and crowded bus that I leave on at 14:30. There are four people in the aisle on stools and half a dozen flies buzzing around. The young man next to me has a hoarse smoker’s voice. This bus has VCD — we get music videos, Chinese stage drama, and a dubbed Jackie Chan.

Luoyang is a medium-sized city. The train station is a couple hundred meters from the bus station, and both are close to an HI affiliated hotel, but I let an insistive tout pull me into a cheap hotel across the street from the train station — I bet the Y50 I’m paying is too much, but I do have a room with A/C all to myself on the 4th floor by the stairs.

I have to wait until midnight to buy my train ticket to Lanzhou — there is a three day advance limit. I waited online, blogging and surfing a couple favorite bulletin boards. For dinner, I stopped into a small shop and picked randomly — cucumber and beef with a hot and sour soup. Then I went back online.

At 23:49 my time was up; I logged off. At 00:01 I was standing in the nearly empty train ticket-purchasing hall with two of twenty counters open — I don’t have a watch now, so I check the time on my camera. I get in line, but a man cuts in front of me, using the exit line. I bought my ticket and walked out the station, across a plaza populated with people sleeping under the open sky on luggage or newspaper, and up to my room. I set down my day bag, cut the tie-wrap securing my backpack, and retrieve flosh and brushing equipment. I walked down the hall to floss and brush my teeth. I returned to my room. The floor attendant lets me in (it’s common practice in China to never see your room key). I go to sleep after blocking the door with a chair.

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http://tom.spacing-guild.net/2006/06/17/luoyang-june-12

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