"So you know what they say about Hefei?" I asked Chris, as we left the train station. "No. What?" "Absolutely nothing." Chris's tour book had all of one sentence about Hefei: "Capital of the impoverished Anhui province." For that reason, we decided that we would go to Hefei. After all, who wants to do the same thing everyone else does? We arrived at 6:30 AM, loaded down with our huge backpacks. First, we tried to find to see if we could pay a hotel to hold our bags for us for the day. Unfortunately, they refused, saying only guests could leave bags. I didn't know how to bribe the attendent (and I'm not sure if I'd want to leave my bag at place that could be bribed) so we decided just to buy a room since it was so cheap. Unfortunately, we came up 5 yuan short of the money needed for the deposit. For the next half hour we walked around Hefei with our giant bags trying to find an ATM. Some ATM's were broken, some didn't accept foreign cards. At one bank there were 3 security cars outside, with a dozen guards armed in body armor and automatic weapons. As we went up to the ATM, one of the guards poked his head out of a back window of the van and said, "Hello!" with a boyish grin on his face. "Ni hao!" I replied, and he ducked into the van laughing. As we left we saw a huge cart full of locked metal boxes being escorted into the van. After a long cab ride to the center of town we finally found a serviceable ATM. We also got to see a lot of Hefei. For the capital of an impoverished province it is pretty nice. In the shopping area we went to a giant shoe store where Chris was entirely unable to find a single shoe big enough for his foot. We ate in small noodle shops where we tried to make a little conversation with the locals.