From A to B

 This was my last morning in Shanghai, and I was a little upset about already leaving the friends I had made, but they seemed more occupied with the vibrant nightlife, while I wanted a more deeper cultural experience. 

The concierge had successfully called a taxi and also told me that it should cost around 60RMB (6 pounds)-just to make sure I wouldn't be taken advantage of. On arrival at Shanghai Hongqiao, I made my way through a sophisticated level of security, only the equivalent to that undertaken before boarding a plane. I had to show my passport, then put my luggage through the scanners, and after that I had to undergo a full body search as well. I was finally through the barriers, and I turned up around 2 hours before-just in case something went wrong. I had a lot of luggage and so decided to simply go to the platform waiting area and wait. I then met my next Chinese companion, who was on the way to Wenzhou, which is apparently the most difficult Chinese dialects to learn-I had no idea that each individual city had its own dialect, meaning that someone from Suzhou would not be able to understand someone from Shenzhen if they were speaking their dialects native to their hometown. I tried speaking to the Chinese lady sat next to me in my first Chinese sentence to asking 'Ni qu nail?' 你去哪里， to ask her where she's going. I don't think she really understood, and replied 'I can speak English', while I was looking red faced. Her name was Wei Wei and she was a recruiter working in the English language industry, trying to find new foreign teachers. I still didn't have a phone, so I had no idea what WeChat was when she asked me to add her, so she wrote down her ID for me to add at a later date. I began thinking that trains was a really great way to meet new people, which I suppose makes sense, since people are largely stuck in one stationary place and can't go anywhere. 

I continued on and boarded the high speed train with all my luggage to Hangzhou. Before boarding, I had to yet again show the security guard my passport and, at that time, my paper ticket, before heading down the escalator to the platform. I was impressed, I boarded the train and found my seat, settling in to the 1.5 hours journey over to Hangzhou, I just needed to make sure I got off the correct stop, so I was watching the clock, since I had no idea whether I would understand the announcement. The trains are unlike the British transportation system, which are the old rickety models from the 1980's that still wobble from side to side when moving around any corner, usually making various cringe-worthy squeaking noises that can almost hurt the ears. I was beginning to ask myself questions about whether China, or at least, the transportation was perhaps more developed than that of the UK. 

Before leaving for China I had no real expectations of what China would be like, but so far, it was most definitely more modern than what I had envisioned for a country with 'developing' status.