First thing first, I had to sort out transportation to Michelle's city of Liaocheng. It didn't look far on the map (haha) so I figured it wouldn't take too long. I had learnt the hard way that in China you had to book your tickets as early as possible no matter how simple the journey looks.

Nothing will be simple.

I went to the bus station I already knew.

"The South station has buses to Liaocheng, we don't." I was told.

I walked the two miles to the station to be told that there were no direct buses, I'd have to go via somewhere. I didn't fancy that and went across the road to the train station.

By train I wouldn't arrive until gone 11 that night.

"How do you get to Liaocheng?" I was back at the famed South station, it was 10:40.

"There's a direct bus at 11:20" said the woman who had just told me there was no direct bus!

There was no time to argue so I bit my tongue, bought my ticket and jumped in an electric pedicab. I had to get back to my hotel, grab my luggage and return in 35 minutes.

I don't know if the driver had sensed my urgency or just had an urgent disposition but she drove me like a maniac. Hounding identical vehicles, shouting at them to go faster, squeezing through impossible gaps, even getting into a minor collision didn't stop her and onwards we whined.

I liked her style so asked her to wait whilst I reclaimed my luggage and deposit.

On the way back she explained that we couldn't use the main road at that time of day and would have to take the slower back roads.

"My bus leaves in 20 minutes".

"Oh, I'll just explain that to them, then" she replied obscurely and got busy trying to cross the main road so we could sail illegally down it.

There was too much traffic and time was ticking. Suddenly we were heading south in the face of oncoming traffic on the wrong side of a road we shouldn't have been on in the first place. Still she had the audacity to be honking her horn at the other vehicles!

After a short while she stopped her little vehicle shouting that it was too slow, grabbed me and we were running across the main road. Once on the other side she flagged me down a taxi, told him the South station and flatly refused any payment from me. I don't know why she did any of this.

Thanks to her I was at the station in time to wait for an hour to be told that my bus was broken and would never come.

I'd have to take the indirect route I had first been told about.

Eight hours later I was at dinner with Michelle who had wisely brought a friend, Ruth, along.

Michelle was putting me up for the night and we stayed up until 5am meeting eachother.