It’s ages since I saw these in a hotel room in China.
Toilet paper in China. The last time I saw them was probably 2009. Rest assured, few hotels here use them now. This is one of the rare ones. It’s my first, and last, time staying here, and I am only staying here cuz my usual Emeishan hotel, for some reason, is currently not available for online booking.
But all’s not dire this trip.
I had the first of my three train rides this trip yesterday. So exciting! I had earlier booked the 7:23 p.m. train from Chengdu Shuangliu Airport to Emeishan. I didn’t think I could make the earlier 3:06 p.m. train with my flight arriving at 1:40 p.m. The flight arrived 10 minutes earlier so I thought I could change the ticket to the earlier train. But it was past 2:00 p.m. when I finally emerged from the arrival hall. Immigration now includes biometric finger printing; interesting that audio instructions to help me do the printing were in Malay, probably because the system detected my passport’s from Malaysia. I then had to walk from Terminal 1 (international) to Terminal 2 (domestic) where the train station is located. It was already past 2:30 p.m. when I got to T2. I didn’t know if there was a cut-off time for train ticket changes and decided to try – walked to the station one floor down, went up to the ticket counter, and found there was no cut-off time. By the time I had the ticket changed and in my hand, it was 2:57 p.m. When I entered the waiting area, the train still hadn’t been called for passengers to go down to the platform. God was definitely looking out for me. And then, waiting on the platform, I got a video of the train arriving. Here’s a screenshot.
The train departed on time and arrived in Emeishan at 4:16 p.m., a 1h 10min journey, including stops at stations in-between.
Then, when I exited the station, I saw its entrance and found a spot for this photo.
So, the answer to the question posted as the title to this post – no, travel in China has not taken a step backwards.
