Another day of lost photos because one of my harddrives failed and it will cost over $1000 to get it back if they can even recover the data. The end of the Yangtze river cruise came. We took a bus to Yichang where I then got on another bus to go to Wuhan, another large chinese city. I had to go there because there were no trains to Shanghai from Yichang. When i got to the bus there were no more seats left. I went to the back where there was one more seat but the guys were telling me it was some old dudes seat and laughing. I was getting mad but then i saw this old dude from our boat that held everyone up all the time coming. It was his seat. Hate that guy. I told the driver that there were no more seats and he was surprised. when he saw there were no more he said that there is one more and pulled down this seat that goes over the bus stairs next to the driver. I couldn't believe it. I sat in it cuz I had no choice i had to get to Wuhan. Chinese buses are notorious for fatal accidents. I had a front row seat kissing the windshield next to the driver who honked at everything for 4.5 hours. i couldn't even fall asleep or else i would fall out of my makeshift chair and roll out the door onto the highway. to make the insult even worse they were showing "Flashpoint" and kick ass realistic modern fighting movie starring Donnie Yen that i've been dying to see for years on the screen but at my 87 degree angle i couldn't see anything. i had some great photos of this so you could all laugh at me but now they are gone forever. It gets better. upon arriving in Wuhan I needed a hotel for the night. I needed a phone card recharge first so i got one at a store and a the guy asked me where if i needed a hotel so i talked to this woman standing right next to him in the shop. After I got her to agree to 100 rmb i followed her down this street near the station and immediately started to think "what the H am i doing". it looked really ghetto even for china, shady characters, and a bunch of brothels. at the "hotel" i said i didn't want to pay any safety deposit and they said ok pretty easily and they didn't even ask for my passport (which is the law). the key was just a piece of plastic you stick in the door (didnt appear to be magnetic or have any high tech security going on). I asked to see the room first so the woman took me to it and shut the door and asked if i needed a xiao jie (girl). My brain processed the word xiao jie for a minute and then it hit me and i said "ohhhh, wait, do you mean you"? the woman was like 60 and she laughed and said no not me. I was thinking if i said no maybe she would get some goons to come get me so i just said maybe, but if i do need a girl i will come and find you. I knew i would be paranoid the whole night about goons coming to steal my camera and laptop so I thought about sliding the bed in front of the door. but the front office was right below my room so i didn't want to alert them so i thought i would slide the mattress over then. i miscalculated and the huge mattress didnt fit in the space btwn the wall and the bed frame so i ended up sleeping on a 2 foot wide area that wasn't sloping because of the squeeze. I also didn't think the mattress was heavy enough to stop the door from opening so i put the tv and garbage can strategically wedged between the wall and mattress and door theoretically making it impossible for anyone to open the door. paranoia and mosquitos made it so i only got 2 hrs of sleep before taking the train to shanghai in the morning. why did i do this? i was so tired. the whole time i was thinking i just need to sleep for a few hours and then im out of here. In the morning i went downstair and the guy was sleeping on a cot in the lobby in his PJs. I said i'm leaving and he sleepily just said to leave the key on the desk. No checking the room? i could have murdered someone or shat all over the place. I took some photos of the huge train waiting area and took the semi bullet train to shanghai. on the way the air suddenly turned all white and you couldn't see anything out the windows, like we were in a cloud, or a cloud of asbestos or something. it lasted for 10 minutes. those pics and videos would be really cool to see right? well they're gone now. We passed through Nanjing and onto Shanghai north station which is far from the center of shanghai.
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