My university has a campus in Ningbo, China, and I was invited there for a two-day workshop. I'll divide this little account into three parts (plane journey, Ningbo, train journey), and the next post will cover Shanghai.

I'm not sure why, but the journey to Ningbo seemed somehow more of an eclectic travel mosaic than usual.

Having checked in at KL Sentral (which is an excellent option if you are travelling with the highly estimable Cathay Pacific), I investigated Simply D's breakfast offerings. A good bet is mee siam (a drier version than most, but very tasty). Then I climbed aboard the train to KLIA, whizzing through Bandar Tasik Selatan, where my usual bus would have long departed, but the harmonica player was no doubt still feeling his way towards a tune.

I watched Room on the way to Hong Kong. A noteworthy movie. All about captivity, freedom, and the different sort of captivity that is the process of learning to be free. It imagines how a child who has never been outside one room grows up seeing the world, and how he learns to modify that vision. It reminds you how tenacious and enterprising some human beings can be.

I also watched programmes about French fashion. About incredibly successful fashion bloggers. About Dior's new man. Such a different, different world... I don't know why I find it interesting, but I do.

I had Illy caramel latte at HK airport, the sky outside iron-grey and uninviting. And I had Haagen Dazs ice-cream on the Dragonair flight to Ningbo. No Haagen Dazs for years, and now twice in a few weeks...

It turned out we had travelled to HK in the company of a number of Kachin asylum-seekers who had been accepted for resettlement. After spending eight years in KL, they were off to Florida. These are the travellers who really humble me...

For most of my time at Ningbo I was workshopping. But there was the occasional opportunity to appreciate this very pleasant campus. Like ours, it boasts a lake and a clock tower. At this time of year it is host to some phenomenally hardy blossom, which braves the vicious cold to glow like so many gems against the bright blue sky.



We were well fed throughout, but the highlight was dinner at Shipu Seafood Restaurant in Yinzhou Wanda Plaza. We toured the food possibilities first. Then -- seated round a circular table the huge dimensions of which made the lazy susan revolve comically fast -- we enjoyed our host's various choices. Every offering was exquisite, from the piece de resistance fish dishes, to the humble broad beans and spicy mushrooms, to the savoury "cake", to the famous Ningbo sweet dumplings, filled with black sesame.



The other treat was visiting the Tian Yi Ge Museum on the last afternoon. This is the earliest private book collection still in existence in China, and it is a magical place, quiet and secluded and immensely photogenic.







We took a train named Harmony to Shanghai. We queued to collect our pre-booked tickets, and then were free to photograph the impressive, modern station, and grab a tray meal from Kungfu (good chicken and pumpkin, with rice and veges; not such good soup, its chunks of meat concealing an annoying multiplicity of splintery bones).

The train was sleek and modern, left punctually, and was full the whole way. Insanely hot, mind you... As I've found wintry China uncomfortably cold, I ought to have been happy about that. I guess we're never satisfied... In a little less than two and a half hours, hitting speeds in excess of 240 kph, we'd arrived in Shanghai.