You need sharp elbows to live in Beijing, I reckon. Life in the Olympic Village is spectacularly orderly. There are volunteer guides at every turn, smiling and pointing the way and even limited English helps smooth the path to where you need to go, while official buses transport you door-to-door. You never need to see a real Chinese person, if you don't want to.

Step outside the Olympic bubble, though, and the reality of life in China overwhelms the senses and tests the resolve. They tell me that the authorities here spent a lot of time trying to teach people simple lessons to deal with their foreign invaders for the duration of the Games. Things like smiling and how to queue politely. Believe me, the lessons weren't working at Beijing South railway station on Thursday morning as I lined up to buy a train ticket to Qingdao.

Laden with suitcases, I did the usual thing and checked out which ticket window looked least busy. There is no such thing. Families here who travel together never just nominate mum or dad or somebody to go and buy the tickets while everyone else hangs back out of the way. They all gather around the ticket window at the same time and they all make their point, usually quite forcefully, at the same time.

So I lined up behind a family of seven, who crushed against the glass, jabbering away all at once. The ticket-buying process took an eternity, but the interesting thing was that I started second in the queue and ended up fifth within a couple of minutes. Before I knew it, people were standing in front of me and they, too, were crushing into the back of jabbering family and soon everyone was jabbering .... except for me.

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Why didn't they ring me up before they decided to hold the Olympic Games in Beijing in August? Don't do it, I'd have said

Simon Barnes

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It took the kindly clerk to spot that I hadn't moved for about 15 minutes. She called me forward to her window and patiently worked out what I was trying to say and starting to punch out the ticket - when the back of a head suddenly appeared in front of my face and I was shoved aside while an arm waved a ticket at the window as a noisy bloke demanded attention. And then the same from the other side, and this time it was a teenage girl, who looked like a seven-stone waif but clearly punched well above her weight when it came to getting what she wanted. The clerk waved both of the intruders away and started again on my fare. And then it happened all over again with another intruder into my personal space. Why can't these people wait?

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Beijing South station is an extraordinary construction of steel and glass, clearly new and with airline-style facilities. There is an electronic baggage check before you enter the station and then a huge concourse with chairs and tables set out as a waiting area. Each platform is reached by escalator where a gleaming white, streamlined high-speed train awaits.

The journey to Qingdao, about 600 miles south of Beijing, lasted more than five hours. The staff are decked out in smart blue uniforms, just like their flight attendant counterparts, and were wonderfully helpful and polite. But every one of the 100 seats in my carriage was filled as we set off.

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The one habit in China that the government was determined to crack down on pre-Games was spitting. It was vying for the chance to become an Olympic sport before it was outlawed, the Chinese were so good at it, and officials were right to believe it would offend visitors. But what is the problem with men's sinuses out here? Snorting what appears to be substantial amounts of phlegm is a national pastime that causes no embarrassment. Strikes me it is a habit that is a little like Max Mosley's prediliction for S&M - fine when practised at home but a little off-putting in public. That man in seat 74 really did need to go and see a doctor.

***

I sought refuge - and sustenance - in the buffet car. The microwaved meal-in-a-box consisted of rice, meatballs, cabbage in chili sauce and a scotch egg that looked slightly older than me. I passed on that but the rest was delicious.