Last week I had three friends visiting from the US. They all work for an airline so were able to “pop over” for a quick three day trip. They had a long list of things to do in those three days so hit the ground running.
One thing they wanted to do was ride the new ‘bullet’ train to Tianjin, which makes the run between Beijing and the port city on the coast in 30 minutes flat. At first I suggested we take the train down in the morning, poke around Tianjin, then come back in the afternoon; however, since they had too much they wanted to do in Beijing, we decided to make the trip for the sole purpose of riding the train.
So, one morning last week we took the 7:30AM train out of the South Station. We arrived in Tianjin at 8AM, walked around the rain-swept square, ate some baozi for breakfast (Tianjin is famous for baozi–steamed meat-filled dumplings), then boarded the 9:30 train back to Beijing. We were back here in town by 10. Each way, the train hit a top speed ofr 330 kph.
We went straight to my friend’s teahouse. When I told her we’d just come from a breakfast run to Tianjin, it only confirmed her suspicion that foreigners are certifiably nuts!
