Yesterday was quite nice....sort of.....
I needed to book a train ticket for a journey next week - I wasn't very happy about it, because I HATE going on the train : the stations here are HUGE - bigger than most airports - and just SO busy. Buying a ticket is a nightmare - you need your passport, and foreigners can't book more than 6 days in advance, which means the locals (who can book 15 days in advance) can grab all the tickets (in the UK that would "RACIST!!!!") - so one of my chaps tried to book it in his name on the internet...it all got complex...and, anyway, to cut a long story short, we ended up at the station twice in a day. After booking them online, we went back to print them out - a bit like printing out cinema tickets that you've booked online - but as the machines aren't designed to take passports, we had to queue up AGAIN.
When we finally got to the front,my chap - who had said "Don't bring any money, I paid online with my card" - nearly died with frustration, when the ticket man asked for 10 RMB (a quid) to print them out!! Naturally, we had no money...Parker the driver was waiting (again)...but a young woman, next in the queue (and probably a bit pissed off with our story) pushed her hand through with a 10 RMB note in it. My man was muttering about taking her address to send her the money back, but she wouldn't have any of it. Yes, she was probably about to miss her train, and wanted to buy her own ticket, but 10 RMB is much more over here than a quid is back home...and even so, how many people in Britain would have done that, for a total stranger, even allowing for the fact I look a bit of a novelty here (not to mention like a hunky rock / film star!!) - it was VERY kind....
When I went to bed that night, and turned out the lights and talked 'to the stars in the sky' (when I can see them through the bloody smog) I rattled off my usual list of 'wants', balanced with a few token 'thanks' (so he doesn't think I'm a greedy, ungrateful bastard) - and added a few words for that young lady. I do hope he listened and gave her a 'reward' today - one good turn / act of kindness deserves another back, in my book...
That evening, my kind hosts took me too a 'famous' restaurant - the food wasn't quite to my liking (i'm not sure if they were 100% dead) but the location was lovely - a mass of water lilies. It was very relaxing - the Chinese are good at building quiet, relaxing places (as well as bloody horrible noisy ones) - and I managed a few moments alone, lost in my thoughts.....
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