27th February: Nina loses her ticket to 南京 Nanjing = We go to 高安 Gao’an

Nina and I were planning on going to 南京 Nanjing but she suddenly couldn’t find her train ticket anymore and there weren’tany other affordable tickets. The only ones were being sold for around 100€… So I tried to get a refund for my ticket while Ican but the train station was so… confusing! Seriously! I know that I’m not good with directions and that I get lost frequentlybut who would have ever thought that I had to go to the police in order to get my refund?! Why is the police responsible forthat? That’s why after a lot of running around I couldn’t get a refund anymore because you can only get a refund before the train leaves… 

And honestly, when I was knocking on their door and opened it a tad bit because I just couldn’t believe that I was sent to the police the female officer just told me to wait outside, so I went outside again. But it was raining quite a lot, so I opened the door again and asked if I she real meant outside xD” Then she suddenly asked me if I was a foreigner and after they confirmed that I indeed am a foreigner another officer asks what I need. I explained my situation and he told me that I couldn’t get a refund but that I was in luck because someone else came in before me to get a refund for their tickets to Nanjing! I asked him to wait, so I could get Nina to go to that Mini-Police station (she was waiting somewhere else with all our luggage). We got the tickets and the officer gave us his number because we had to call him, when we wanted to get into the train station. 

Short explanation about Chinese train stations: You get checked. A lot. They check your ticket (it has your name and passport number on it) and your passport and your luggage, when you want to enter the train station, then they check your ticket again when you go through a “gate” in order to get to the platform. They check again, when you board the train and they check again, when you’re in the train. When you leave the train station of your destination you should prepare your ticket because guess what? They’ll check again… All in all you’ll get checked 5 times at least (sometimes the check multiple times on the train) =_=

That’s the reason why the officer has to bring us in because the ticket he gave us had names and the passport numbers of the people who bought them before us.

Our train would leave in the evening, so we decided to call 龚雨薇 Gong Yuwei and ask her whether she has time or not.Since we had a lot of time anyway Nina and I bought bus tickets to 高安 Gao’an and 甘淼 Gan Miao picked us up. Heshowed us around and asked another friend to come. We went to the city wall and walked around the city and went to acafé. 龚雨薇 Gong Yuwei only joined us for the café because she was busy teaching someone English. We talked a lot, hadfun playing UNO and after having dinner at a fast food restaurant Nina and I had to go back to 南昌 Nanchang.

After arriving in 南昌 Nanchang we went to the police station and waited for the responsible officer to take us into the trainstation because the tickets we bought still had the names and the passport numbers of the people who bought them beforeus on them. 

While we were waiting other officers started asking the usual questions “Where are you from?”, “Are you students and are you traveling?” and after hearing that we’re from Germany one answered: “Germany… It’s a good city!” Neither Nina nor Ihad the heart to tell him that it’s not a city but a country… When the other officer arrived we were treated like VIPs! We didn’thave to line up and were brought to what we call “VIP section”. Usually they just have normal seat but that part of thestation had couches! After waiting a while we were finally on our way to 南京 Nanjing~