Taking a dream train journey, after 20 years

Flying out of Shanghai in the summer is a lesson in patience and prayer when seasonal storms play havoc with flight routes.

Arriving at Hongqiao Airport, the departures board was awash in red with delayed and cancelled flight notices. Having experienced five-plus hour delays and outright cancellations twice within the space of three weeks, when we saw our flight delayed along with a backlog of others we decided to take our chances and try the new bullet train to Beijing.

At five hours it was more than double the flight time, but departure was guaranteed, something our flight couldn't claim.