Lunch, traditional Chinese medicine, missing a train….
On Saturday, I checked out of the hotel and went to Sun Wah's office in Beijing with Alex Banh. Their main office is not in Beijing, but they have rented an apartment which they use as an office and as a place to sleep when they are in Beijing. I left my big suitcase at the office and then we headed for lunch (again to some really fancy restaurant).
After lunch, Roger and Yorick went around the city with me. Coincidentally, Yorick had to go to a famous place for traditional Chinese medicine and this was the place my Chinese friend from the UK recommended that I should go to to have a traditional Chinese check-up (which mainly works by feeling the pulse to figure out what's wrong). It was a really interesting and funny experience… (with Roger translating what the doctor said). The doctor thought that my life cycle isn't regular enough and that the quality of my sleep is not very high either… I guess I'll try to do something about that, and she also gave me some Chinese medicine. Let's see how that works out… but it was definitely an interesting experience.
Afterwards, we did some shopping. It's amazing how cheap (legal) CDs and DVDs are here… at some point, I asked one of the guys what time it was because I had a train to catch at 19.28 to Shanghai. He said it was 17.45 but after walking around for a few minutes we heard a bell ringing, looked up and saw that it was seven! We immediately got a taxi to the railway station, arrived there at about 19.25. I went into the station but it was really crowded and it took me a while to figure out where to go and by the time I went there, the train had left already… When I left the station, Roger and Yorick weren't there anymore since they assumed that I made my train. I took the underground to get back to the office. While I remembered the building and how to get to the apartment, I wasn't sure on which floor it was on… so I thought I'd just try my luck and ring at some apartments. The first one didn't answer and the second one opened and spoke some English. I asked if I could use the phone and they were really nice and invited me in. I phoned one of the organizers and got the right floor number. I went there but nobody was there! So I went up again, rang some organizers to find out the number of Yorick and phoned him to tell him that I was waiting at the apartment. After about 20 minutes, he and Roger arrived and they had already made arrangements on the way to get me a flight to Shanghai the next morning.
I stayed the night at the office and since all beds were occupied I just said I'd take some cushions and sleep on the floor. Yorick immediately offered to sleep on the floor so I could use his bed, but I reassured him that it was really okay. While it's nice to have five star hotels and stuff like this, I don't need it, and I'm perfectly willing to sleep on the floor. In fact, the cushions were really comfortable and I had a good night of sleep.