15th August: Cabin fever

During last night, a new German girl came into our dorm, something Rich must have slept through because as he tried to make his way in the dark to the toilet from his top bunk he slipped and fell. Literally onto the new girl who thought that she was being molested by some ogre! After a while she calmed down a bit and agreed not to call the police. Luckily today we leave Beijing, so an awkward second night in the dorm was prevented.
Myself and Fi got up early to go down and watch the raising of the flag in Tianamen Square. At 4.30am it was mobbed with people. We were nowhere close to it with the thousands of people. Nice to see it all the same. For the rest of the day we walked the streets of Beijing. There was stalls everywhere selling street food so this was the time to step up to the….ahem….plate.

There are certain things that I don’t like to eat, mushrooms being one of them. It’s not the taste that turns me off, it’s the texture but after eating a fried scorpion on the streets of Beijing I would gladly stuff a mushroom in my mouth. Again, it was the texture that turned me off…..and the taste…and the look of it…..and the crunchy tail….EUCH!!!

It was then time to go get the train. A 12 hour sleeper train to Shanghai. When we got to the train station we had our first real experience of China. Masses of people squashing into the station, chaos prevailing! I’ve never seen so many boobs in my life with all the women breastfeeding. I think some grandmothers were even giving it a go. The grandfathers would have happily joined in too if they weren’t so busy spitting the contents of their nasal tubes onto the ground.

On the train was a bit more peaceful. We had gotten a soft sleeper, which is a luxury. A cabin with 4 beds and a Chinese woman. She seemed a bit intimidated by us. One thing that is really popular in China is the Pot Noodle. But not the one’s we’re used to. These things are sold in buckets as a full dinner. Same principle. Just add boiling water, and all the carriages have hot water dispensers so the place was full of them. You can just imagine the smell. It’s like sticking you’re head into a sauna powered by pot noodles when you get on the train.