China's neglected backyard

Hebei province seen from the train looks like China's neglected backyard. I noticed that on one of my last trips for work. 'Work', where getting dressed up as princess Bubblegum means a positive turn of events.

Usually any of the train trips I had to take so far it was foggy (= heavily polluted) and therefore I was unable to look around much. Or, we left ridiculously early (or late) so it was already dark. One time, however, it was squeaky bright. I could see Tianjin and the Tianjin tower from the window of my train, and before that moment I only knew of Tianjin because one of the stations we'd pass was called 'Tianjin West'. Also there were villages, and abandoned factories, and piles of stuff, and peasants toiling in the heat. All by all, it looked like a neglected backyard (a backyard nonetheless).

I must have pictures somewhere that will paint a picture. Once I took as video as we crossed the Yellow River (in fog and haze), other times I'd try to commemorate the view in combination with a can of beer, which is never the same on a Chinese train (I've only boarded high speed trains in China. Don't judge! Train travel is still my favorite way of travel. Czech trains in particular. Go try them!).

I've sipped through quite a few epic cans (because there were a lot of trips *ahem*, not so much because I felt a need to drink my sorrows away, although that was usually the case after the gig). There was a specific type that 'American Troopers'  preferred apparently, and there was a beer from Tibet.

And I always felt obligated to, in the first place, plop myself down into the restaurant car the minute the train would start moving. There are plugs there for my laptop, and without chord the screen goes black after 15 minutes. Also, more often than not, the travel companions weren't always the coziest.

Anyway. Let me see what material I can snort up from the hidden nooks and crannies of both phone, camera and hard drive.

This is either very annoying, or incredibly sad, but please tilt your head a 90 degrees to the right in order to view properly. Weekly quiz: what's the guy in the background saying? Send in your lucky guess before next week, and maybe you're the lucky winner of a fresh batch of uncontaminated Yellow River silt!