The railway station was quite crowded and there was a queue to get to the T140 train that we were on. We joined the queue expecting it to move within a few minutes but it took about fifteen minutes in the end. When it did move though there was a huge amount of pushing and shoving going on. It didn't make any sense really as everyone has allocated seats / beds so you don't have to be the first in line. It's the same with planes too; why do people do that?

After the crush we didn't have too far to go, only as far as platform four. Our carriage was quite close to the steps, making a nice change from the last train that we were on. We found our cabin and found a fairly old Chinese couple already there. I was still confused as to why we were on a top and a bottom bunk if the other couple were too but I just carried on and heaved our bags up onto the storage space above the door.

Just as I had finished, another man appeared with a big bag and tried to get into the room. Fearful that one of the beds might have been sold twice, I stood in the doorway and tried my best confused expression. This wasn't that hard as I actually was confused. (I'd be good in the Joey Tribbiani school of acting.) A quick show of tickets later and I was none the wiser. The three Chinese people all seemed happy with the situation but seeing our continued concern, pointed at the two beds that we were due to occupy and then carried on as if nothing unusual was going on.

The ticket collecting lady spoke for a few seconds to the couple and then seemed happy too. We guessed that perhaps one of the two weren't travelling. That would explain it. But then the train started moving. Our next guess was that the older man had a ticket for a seat in one of the other cars and that he'd go back there eventually. When though was anybody's guess.

The other man who had joined us made himself at home very quickly. He made noodles and slurped them noisily, ate nuts, picked his toe nails and put his feet up on the bed that was due to be slept in by one of us. Nice.

By 8pm the older woman was settling in to get some sleep and the two men disappeared for a while. Out of consideration I turned the lights out, shut the door and turned the volume down on the overhead speaker. The younger, noodle slurping man soon returned everything to normal when he came back though.

The older man eventually went to bed wherever he was supposed to sleep although he did keep coming back every five minutes for a while. The lights went off and it looked like I'd be playing solitaire until dawn as I just couldn't win a game. Finally, tiredness and good luck overcame me and I somehow got all the cards turned over and in order so I could go to sleep.

While brushing my teeth one of the train attendants asked me for some suggestions. How could I refuse? After I had finished brushing I worked out that she meant comments and so I wrote some waffle about trains on the form she had although I omitted to mention how cramped the cabins were with five inside. She seemed very pleased with what I'd written although I doubt she could read it entirely.

For once I slept quite well and I was quite comfortable except for when I lay on my right side as my wallet was still in my pocket. Too sleepy to bother, I just turned over. I awoke to the sound of the older man sitting at the end of his wife's bed munching breakfast noisily and the awful sound of dozens of people dredging up something horrible to spit out. One such noise came from the wife of the man but I don't know what she did with it - I also don't want to know!

We sat on my bed for a while eating bananas and waking up while the younger man came back from wherever he was before. We made room for him to sit down while the couple with only one ticket between them took up the other seat entirely. It wasn't for long though as the younger man left the train before Shanghai.

In Shanghai we found a taxi and, despite not having Chinese instructions for where we wanted to stay, we were quickly transported to a very clean looking hostel. Perhaps the friendliest staff we've encountered in China yet welcomed us in and showed us to a nice, clean room. We spent only a few moments taking some things out of our bags before setting out to find a bank. We had enough money to pay for one night and faced living on the streets or finding a hotel for several hundred dollars a night if we were unsuccessful. Fortunately though the Bank of China ATM spat out 2000 RMB without any question so we're sorted for a few days now.

We tried an internet cafe the other side of the hostel but were unable to do anything meaningful like check our email as Windows only had the Chinese language packs installed. We did manage to track down the locations of no fewer than six Subway sandwich shops though. One of these was alledged to be below a museum of Chinese sex culture that we thought might be fun to see. We took a number 71 bus to find it and did a bit of walking but then discovered that the museum had moved and was no longer above Subway. We decided to come back to the museum another day as were quite hungry and went off in search of a sandwich. After a metro ride and literally only two minutes of looking we found what we craved: a Subway Club!

Full and happy we tried to decide what to do with the rest of our day. There wasn't much left so we went back to the hostel to use the internet there. Fortunately it was working now, albeit a little slowly. We chatted with a man from the US about the elections there as the results were slowly trickling in. A few Canadians (one from Toronto, one from Montreal and one from all over the place) joined in and eventually went out for dinner together. We caught up with our email and I had a Suntory beer (from Japan). Quite nice.