Ann: New Billing Partnership Secured in China, page-23

Noooo..... Not left field. People are not fully appreciating how lucrative this could be.

FIRST thing to consider is that employees in China don't stagger holidays through the year as we are able to do here.

When there are public holidays EVERYBODY gets them at the same time. And what do they do?

They then ALL travel to their hometown or village to visit the folks. This pretty much puts the transport system into total paralysis. On the trains there are hard seat, soft seat, and sleeper. There is also standing 20hours all the way and random character sleeping under your seat - necessarily a bit scrunched up to avoid the service trolley that is pushed through carriages to sell snacks and refreshments. The guy under your seat can at least lie down to sleep!

The OTHER major issue is in getting tickets at all. Consider visiting a railway station that has a million or so people milling about waiting for trains. (Bear in mind the process may have improved a bitin the last 5 years). There are two chances to get tickets (and they never used to have pre-sales - it was always on the day) - you can TRY at the ticket windows (after queing up) and hope they still have tickets. Or you can buy tickets from scalpers outside the station - which is way more expedient - unless of course you happen to cop a cointerfeit ticket.

Now, I hope people will appreciate what a big deal this opportunity to buy an eticket with your phone will be.

SMA you continue to make me smile!