My roommate's alarm woke me up at 7:30, and I tried to go back to sleep, but I kept thinking about all the studying I could be doing, and decided to get up. Instead of actually working on stuff though, I called my parents and had a chat with them about the Chengdu trip. I then mentioned the possibility of me holding a panda and asked for a small loan of 335 dollars. My dad asked if we could compromise on that, to which I replied with “I’ll pay for half.” My mom hesitated and then my dad jumped back in and was like “woah we didn’t agree!”
But it was too late.
So they offered to pay half the money for me to hold a panda, and I’ve never been so excited.
At noon, we had plans to pick up train tickets, but before that, we got some hella good noodles at the restaurant by the Muslim 餐厅.
At first, we thought we were going to have to go all the way to the train station (an hour away), to get the tickets, but then Kevin said that we could pick them up on 师大路, which seemed like a much better plan.
Kevin and Holden were the first to get their tickets, and when the transaction was successful, we were super relieved because we all wanted to study for our test Monday.
But here’s the thing: when I went up to get my ticket, the guy couldn’t give it to me. I then called for someone who could actually speak Chinese, and Isaac came to save my ass. Since our passports aren’t linked to the train station, we can’t actually pick them up from师大路. Originally, we thought it was just because we’ve never ridden a 高铁, but that wasn’t the case. Somehow, Isaac and Holden, we’re the only ones able to get tickets.
Everyone else wanted to pick up their tickets the day of, but I said that wasn’t smart because you never know what could happen. This is example number one because we would have been very screwed if we had tried that.
People wanted to study, which was very valid, but I really wanted to go ahead and pick up my tickets when I knew I wouldn’t be bogged down with school work, so, me Hannah, Korey, and Logan set off to the Xi’an North station, which is at the very end of the metro line. We were on there for about 40 minutes.
At one point a seat opened up, and I snatched that despite being the one to say “we shouldn’t take seats since we’re young people.” I told Hannah that I would let her sit on my lap if it wasn’t so hot, but somehow everyone else heard “I would let you sit on my lap if you weren’t so hot.”
Also, Love Live was playing on the metro, and I appreciated that.
The North station is massive and it took us a few minutes to even find where to pick up our tickets. We ended up waiting in line for 30 minutes, and at some point, so guy started intensely staring at me.
We were afraid we were going to be in the wrong line after waiting for so long but turns out we didn’t fluff up. The woman at the ticket counter was very aggressive with our phones, however, and I did not appreciate that.
So, reason number two as to why we shouldn’t wait until Friday: it took 2 hours to get our tickets. The good news is that we were successful, so the others won’t have to risk doing the wrong thing. It all works out in the end.
When I got back to the dorms, I studied and then got dinner with Korey and Hannah. Of course, we got the usual of French fries and chicken nuggies.
I studied some more, and then looked into the panda holding more, and found that tickets go from 335 US to 125 US if you do a group of seven. It wasn’t that hard to get people to agree, and we bought tickets for that.
It wasn’t that easy.
First of all, the wifi is booty, so getting things to load was a nightmare. Then I had to get everyone to come and give me their passport number and date of birth. Somehow everyone ended up in Logan’s room for that.
With all the information set, I was ready to pay, but then the wifi cut out, and I lost everyone’s passport numbers, which meant they had to come back and give them to me once the wifi stopped being ass.
Then, my card got declined even though I have sufficient funds on it. I know it’s because First Tennessee things I’m being scammed, but that was super annoying. I had to deal with that for two hours. And then, I somehow managed to lose the page that had the payment information, so for the second time that night, I thought I lost the tickets.
I ended up having Hannah come downstairs and help me call the ticket website for help. My stupid call got dropped the first time. The second time, it tried to charge me, and the third time it flat out didn’t ring. I texted Korey and asked to use his phone because he actually has a working VPN, but Logan came out instead. We tried to use his phone, but that one didn’t work either.
When Korey came out, we couldn’t use his phone. At that point, Logan and Korey asked what I was even trying to do, and I explained the situation. Turns out I’m a dumbass because I thought you could make calls over wifi, but apparently, phone calls always use cellular data. So, turns out, all I had to do was take my phone off of airplane mode since the call was toll-free.
I explained the situation to the caller, and she told me that the tickets were not gone and that I could still book. I guess the timer had just run out, but honestly, I’m not too sure at this point.
I ended up using Korey’s phone since he has a working VPN, but my card still got declined. My parents weren’t being much help either because they didn’t understand the whole “group ticket thing.”
Eventually, I got Korey to use his credit card, and it actually went through.
So after being tired and stressed for three and a half hours, we got our panda tickets. I will be holding a panda on Saturday, and I am living.
Side story: my roommate tried to drag me back into the room because she wanted to see some paper or something, so I just flopped on the ground. I was actually really amused.