The Great Escape

It didn't just rain in Beijing yesterday; the downpour made a massive swimming pool of the city. The night before, we were still deliberating if we should go to Tianijn since the general consensus was that there's nothing to do there. Thank God we decided, that very morning, to spend a day in Tianjin. The only boy in the trio - who was fast asleep at the point of decision - was given about 30 minutes notice before we were out of the dorm.

The highlight of the trip was meeting a friendly old man practicing calligraphy along the river walk. He had ingeniously fashioned a massive brush after a fountain pen and was kind enough to let us play around for a bit. I use the phrase play around because our words were unsightly scrawls next to his and all we could write were our Chinese names.

When it comes to cheap thrills, self-upgrading of seats made the day. A mad rush from the ticket counter ensued (which included squeezing past a huge, disgruntled swarm of people and running through a crowded departure hall) after the attendant calmly informed us that our train was scheduled to leave in 18 minutes. 17, if you subtracted the time we took to get over the wait, what? Oh shit shock. Upon entering the train, we were pleasantly surprised to find the first class cabin very, very welcoming empty. So we almost simultaneously picked a seat and made ourselves comfortable. \0/ so fun :D