A Lyttle News: Arriving in Zhengzhou

Yesterday was our travel day to Henan province, the province that Chloe lives in. We woke up early to be at the train station by 6:30 a.m. After a little confusion on where to pick up our tickets, we found our way to the waiting room by 7 a.m. for our 7:30 train. It was a great way to see more of the country and we arrived ahead of the rest of our group by an hour or so. The bullet train traveled at 300 km/hr for most of the ride with a few stops in between our destination. We traveled with another family from our group, and am very thankful that we connected on fb before the trip and braved this journey together. The rest of the group mentioned that there was some awful turbulence on the ride down to Henan, just another reminder that we made the right choice!

We had to catch a cab to the hotel after the train. Erin had looked up the distance and it showed that our hotel was 3km away from the train station. The cab drivers saw the white families and decided to take us on the scenic route, ensuring themselves a little more money for the day. We took about 20 minutes to make this 3 km trip and saw quite a bit more of the city than we had anticipated. I knew we were in trouble when the cabs pulled parralel to each other and the drivers spoke to each other. I

m sure it went something like this "These white people don't know where they are going, lets show them the town!" Luckily for us it was still less that four dollars to pay for the ride. We all decided we would have paid them plenty if they would have just taken the direct route!

Once we arrived to the hotel, we decided to find lunch with Larry and Erin. We had skipped breakfast and were pretty hungry by this time. After braving our lives to cross the street, we found that there was no food down the direction we were heading. We turned around and came back to the hotel, realizing we should have just checked with our guide before heading out. Our guide Vivian pointed us in the right direction and we enjoyed a good lunch right next door to our hotel.

Soon, the rest of the families arrived and we headed to Walmart to get supplies for the next few days. Unfortunately, the camera had died by this point but I will have to get pictures another time. Was certainly not like Walmart back home!