Sleepless in Beijing

22.10.2015

It was time for my three day weekend again, so on Friday night, I took a train to Beijing to see Ranald and the Forbidden Palace. I set up my couchsurfing host, but apparently bought my ticket too late. Even though I was five days early, there were no sleeper cars left. I wasn't about to change all my plans, so I reluctantly bought a seat for the overnight trip.

Every Friday there are English lectures, so I went to see Charles talk about the history of English. He finished his talk early, and if I took the bus to the train station, I'd be bored, so I just walked. I had a peppy podcast episode of Podrunner, designed for speed walking. That meant I shaved off about 30 minutes from my usual 1.5 hour walking time. I celebrated with a beer and my favourite pre-train snack: spicy bean, lotus and peanut salad.

I finished my snack just in time and sat beside some very excited people who chatted me up for a few hours until they got to their stop. The rest of the time I was drifting in and out of consciousness until I got to Beijing.

Beans, lotus root, peanuts and eega pijiu