At the train station

Tuesday 17th Feb

Three cereal bars and a bag of celery is all I had time to grab as I left for the station – I’d ration it! All will be fine.

On the way: mist and pollution. It occurred to me that the mist is a bit like a white sandstorm but creepier. With pollution you’re facing an anonymous creepy opponent. A sand storm, however, hits you; it’s there, forceful and blatant whereas I feel with the mist it’s sneaky, edging and mysterious. A slap in the face with a sand filled gust is scary and powerful, it will sting; it’ll cause road accidents; it’ll infiltrate your home but the creeping mist of China that slips down your throat and into your pores is a whole other ball game; in a way far more ominous.

Not underestimating the havoc they can wreak, I loved sand storms, always thought it was like the desert reasserting herself. Telling us who is boss. But there’s something quite sad about a poison mist created entirely by ourselves… Anyway, I digress and don’t worry, I have a mask to wear for cycling to school. The pollution won’t get me. My mask is great, I look like Darth Vader’s stunted, pale sister, equally as skilled with a light saber when not tripping over the cloak they don’t make in ‘short’.

So, again, part of me didn’t want a taxi journey to end. It would mean me having to deal with the station, the craziness and the standing train. Still, being Darth Vader’s little sister means that I have a certain rep to protect, one of bravery and strength so forth.

I stood, wary, in what appeared to be a fairly orderly queue wondering what the stampede would be like when the guards opened the train ticket check. I have my battle tactics in mind and some previous experience in making my point: when a lady at the ticket counter tried to push in front of me, I span my suitcase round so that it landed on her foot. One brief glance at my face was enough to tell her that I was not playing!

At this stage, having purchased two tickets already (I bought the wrong one on my futile trip yesterday but it’s a story I’ve little energy to tell), I have now to settle with myself (haha, spell check just changed that to mulls elf) that my journey yesterday was a ridiculous waste of time! However, my biggest disappointment comes shortly after the afore mentioned battle plan formulation session. I survived the crush, got to the front and low and behold I became the problem. My ticket wouldn’t go through. I had to follow a violently extended finger to the scary looking moss green clad guard, erect and serious: frickin’ scary. He pointed out that the date on my ticket was wrong and basically, despite the tears threatening to cascade; despite the desperate telepathic pleading; despite the hope that if he could only read my face and eyes enough to communicate the peril I was currently facing, he offered no immediate solution.

Well, it would seem, the eyes, on this occasion, did not have it and General Stiff as I have now called him – I’m sure he was trying to be nice – could do nothing for me. I was to don my ruscac, drag my little black case and lump the gift-stacked shoulder bag back to counter number 89 where, if I was lucky, and while my intended train chugged out of the station, I may be able to exchange my ticket for another.

One row with the station master (not fun); one realisation that I can’t actually leave the train station for four hours and one fact that I have already seen more than my fair share of people picking their noses later, I find myself in Costa Coffee counting my blessings that I asked to share a table with the neon clad bespectacled teenager reading manga as she left not long after my arrival and I was able – before the crowd descended, to switch the chairs so mine had arms. I have a Chinese green tea before me and a slice of carrot cake waiting and regardless of what the little green bits are, I will eat it. The icing is as tasteless as Costa at home, a strangely comforting phenomena. With four hours to kill, I thought I might try to find a corner to sleep in. Wouldn’t cinemas in train stations be a good idea?

A man came and sat opposite me and made a million phone calls. I kept my eyes shut but every now and then I would peep through half open eyes to see his huge gold ring clad fingers facing me. I swear every phone call he made, he swapped a ring.

Hours later, having nursed the same green tea and proud of myself that I had resourcefully produced some Chinese phrase cards, I stood there concentrating very hard on generating an impenetrable force field to protect me from hair flicking, barging, the flicking of other things…bluuurgh, it suddenly occurred or me that if I could have anything right now, anything at all, it would be a toffee mint humbug – maybe two.

Happily, I had a window seat next to a twiggish adolescent so enjoyed the prospect of a sunset train journey in a fairly spacious environment – this could even turn out well… Helpfully, while on the train, I was receiving text messages from a colleague who kindly informed me that my destination also boasts the largest leper colony in China. It is however, ‘quite pretty. Apparently.’ Excellent!