Day 361: 306KM/H Baby!

Shanghai – Beijing, China

A warning to those travelling China during summer: book your train tickets at least a week in advance.

I had wanted to ride a cheaper, slower overnight train from Shanghai to Beijing but had to settle for the more expensive high-speed train. Although, comparatively speaking, it’s still a lot cheaper than everywhere else. My 5 and a half hour trip on the fancy 306km/hour train only cost RMB550 (USD87). The experience is night and day compared to my Guangzhou-Shanghai train ride.

After spending the whole day commuting today, I got in Beijing in the evening. My cousin Christina had recommended a Couchsurfer named Caina who surfed at hers last year in Taiwan.

Caina had agreed to host me for two days. She shared a room with a roommate. The room is within a shared house. The set up is rather hard to describe. It’s more dorm-like, but families occupy it. The building has shared bathroom and kitchen. It seemed to me that the place is like a 1950’s utilitarian communist housing. It was quite an experience.

Caina is a local Beijing-ner. She’s an intelligent girl who had joined a contest to travel independently in Taiwan. It wasn’t until last year that independent (ie. not with tour groups) travel is allowed for mainland Chinese tourists in Taiwan. To promote the tourism, Taiwanese tourism department had sponsored a campaign in which some 30 travellers to do their independent trips. Caina was amongst them. With her blog about the trip, she won third place and had appeared on TV and magazines.