The Train Has Left the Station

I got a chance to visit China and stay with my friend who is an Indian. She has a flair for languages so in 3 years picked up a small amount of mandarin. For 10 days we did day trips to every place which had train connection. Trains are extremely punctual and you can actually miss a train if you are a minute late. On one trip we got lost and were not able to get  back to the station in the evening because we couldn’t explain to the natives that we wanted a bus for the station. Very few people speak English. Finally we got a cab whose driver spoke English. When we told him that we need to get to the station in 10 mts as the train leaves at 7.26- he called us crazy and made us pay the fare as soon as we sat in his cab. 
My friend kept saying – we will miss the train … I told her to keep quiet and started saying a small prayer. She laughed saying it won’t help because even God can’t play with Chinese punctuality. We literally ran across the entire length of the station. And I am not thin by any standards😊.we saw the train pulling out. My friend yelled – see I told you- I told her to swipe the ticket anyway- when she did – an alarm rang and a person quickly came to open the automatic doors – manually.She told us we were lucky the train was pulling into the station and not out. We could race and jump in as the train was 2 mts late that day- the driver was slowing down the train but not stopping it. We got on the train by a whisker. Had we missed it we had no place to stay and there was no train till next morning . I am amazed at my rock solid faith that day that we won’t miss the train.