Met up with ShuLan for lunch today. It’s kind of weird that we met up in Beijing because I didn’t even know he was visiting Beijing until I sent him a random email. Like many Chinese that furthered their studies in the US, Shulan hasn’t been back to China for 12 years and this time he is bringing his 3 year old daughter to see their family.

Lunch on Shulan since he is getting his fat bonus soon. As an expert in US mortgage market, he mentioned that ABS market last year was even better than 2007, seems like the US economy is improving.

ShuLan’s daughter. She wasn’t even born while we were in graduate school, how time flies.

Somehow I lost my Bank of China ATM card which I just opened few days before. It’s quite bureaucratic in China where I had to go back to the same branch to close my account. I had to look for the same branch because I was planning to leave Beijing the same day. Since I lost my ATM card, I wasn’t able to withdraw any money so I had to open another account in order to transfer all my money to the new account and withdraw from the new account. My old account was still left hanging because it will take 7 days to report my lost ATM card and after 7 days I will need to go back in person to the same branch to close it.

Sometimes, things in China look nice from the outside by inside, it’s not what it really is.

Went to the Beijing south train station and took the 6.25pm bullet train to Tianjin (58 Yuan~USD$8.50). The south train station looks pretty new.

The design of Beijing South Station

The bullet train will only take 30 minutes to Tianjin traveling on a speed of 300km/h.

Beijing is huge, even after 5 days I still wasn’t able to cover many parts of the city.

Got to Tianjin station at 6.55pm. Tried to find a youth hostel and took bus 5 from Tianjin tran station to the north part of the city. Missed the stop and decided to stay somewhere else since the place is quite far off from the city. Most small hotels around the train station don’t accept foreigners as well.

Took bus 50 to BinJiang Dao and met up with Liu Feng and Li Jian for dinner. Li Jian treated me for SiChuan food.

Went back to the train station and got a ticket to Harbin for the next day (140 Yuan~USD$20 for hard seat). It’s hard to get ticket currently because most Universities are having vacation.

Walked around and decided to stay at a XiYuZhongXin, bath house. (38 Yuan~USD$6). The place was pretty nice and clean, inside looked just like a 3 stars hotel. There’s a hot pool, sauna and they even gave out towels and pajamas as well. I slept pretty well in the big room.