Reunion with a friend and his family in Xiangfan (2/2) 2010/8/14 
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The Japan time is shown in the following pictures, one hour later than the China time.
All the following pictures are from 1920x1080i60 video clips.
I had a viking-style breakfast with the nephew at Hanjiang International Hotel. Large hotels are usually called "
" in the Chinese language. In Japanese it means a liquor shop, but they do not sell alcoholic drinks in China. You will find such drinks in "
", or a supermarket. When entering a subway or railroad platform in China, the bags and suitcases that we carry are inspected by a machine in a way similar to the inspection in Japanese airports. It is somewhat troublesome but should be favorable for the security reason. The nephew said Nissan has a factory in Xiangfan that produces automobiles in cooperation with Dongfen Motor Corporation. Unfortunately, I noticed no Nissan cars in Xiangfan, though I saw some, like Teana and Cefiro, in Shanghai.
The friend rents a house that is located on the fifth floor of a 6-story apartment building. He said it is a private property of another person. In China the whole land is owned by the government or agricultural organizations. A person may have the right of use, which can be sold to another. His house's floors and walls are new and fantastic. He said the house was remodeled by the owner just before he began to rent it recently. The son told me that he never saw it before returning home from the university. It has two bedrooms, a large living + dining room, a large shower + wash room, a large toilet + washing machine room, and a kitchen. They always think of the high cost of electricity. They have two airconditioners, and the one in the living room was running whenever I visited. The building is so old that the stairway lights can be turned on by powerfully hitting the stairway with the feet when they are not on in the evening. The nephew explained the electrical contacts are poor. The toilet facilities in a small city (like Xiangfan) or a farming village are usually poor, while I don't know of them in large cities. The friend's toilet seems better than the average. Forty years ago when I visited a park near Pittsburgh in the USA, I used an open toilet. The footing was slant, and I had to be careful not to slide. There was no partition between neighboring compartments, and everyone could see the person using it, though none might be interested in watching. I wonder how it has now been changed.
Let us return to the initial story. As I had asked the daughter and niece to come to the hotel at 10 o'clock, they appeared in time. They were going to help me buy some suitable small gifts for me to give friends in Japan. We rode bicycle taxis from the hotel to a supermarket:
The taxi went on the pathless narrow land along the railway and then saw people eating
along a shopping street in the abobe picture. The driver is seen at the right end. Since
there was no slope, he pedaled the taxi comfortably. All the way from Shanghai to Xiangfan,
the land is nearly flat.
Since there was little room for my gifts in the suitcase and napsack, I only bought a few small food packages. The check-out counters were as big as I saw in the USA 40 years ago, though the Chinese ones had no conveyers. Many foods were sold by the weight and we had to weigh them for ourselves. The day before when I went shopping with the nephew, he frequently forgot to weigh the foods.
That day, the girls never failed to weigh the foods. I had difficulties in exchanging Japnese money for Chinese money. Most shops did not accept my VISA card. I was only able to borrow 2000 Chinese yuan (= x12.5 Japanese yen) per day through ATM. The hotel allowed me to exchange 30000 yen (or less) for 2300 yuan excluding the exchange fee. The bank of China did not deal with the monetary exchange because it was Saturday. If I were to make frequent visits, I would have obtained a China Union (
) card. We visited a Sony store to find iPhones. The store carried 2G and 3G but no 4G. In the supermarket, rice was sold at a price much less than 10 yuan per kg, about 1/10 of the price in Japan. It might be more expensive in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai.
In the evening of that day, 8/14/2010, the friend took us for dinner in a private room of a big restaurant. The 9 people sat around a big round rotatable table to talk and eat friendly and pleasantly. Then, we went back to the hotel room to chat further and drink the Chinese tea the friend prepared. We remebered and talked about the experiences in Japan ten years ago and in Xiangfan earlier that day and the day before. We then went together by taxi to the Xiangfan railway station, where the nephew and I were to ride in a night train to Wuhan. The friend now and then went out of the room to smoke. Even here in China, smokers seemed to feel small.
At 23 o'clock, we all took taxis to go to the railway station. The nephew was to take me to Wuhan by night train, to Shanghai by superexpress "
", and to the Pudong airport by taxi. After seeing me going through the boarding gate, he would visit the Shanghai EXPO. The night train sign in the waiting room of the Xiangfan station:
The night train started at Shiyan, about 150 km away northwest from Xiangfan. It leaves Xiangfan
at 23:59 and reaches Wuhan, about 300 km away southwest, at 05:00 in the following morning.
There is a faster train, running between Xiangfan and Wuhan for 2 hours, as will be described later
in this page. Three hours later, we were to tranfer to "" for Shanghai.
One half of the waiting room in the Xiangfan station:
The waiting room picture taken in another position:
A picture taken in a different direction:
The 7 people sent us to the boarding gate, where they kept waving their hands till we were out of sight. Parting from each other, we were all to shed tears, remebering that our eyes were all wet. The nephew and I then went down to the platform.
The night train and the nephew carrying the suitcase:
A private room of the sleeing car is slightly seen in the picture below:
The corridor, showing doors to the private rooms:
Our private room for four people. We slept on the lower beds. Another
man came later to an upper bed:
Reunion with a friend and his familiy after 10 years
(1) 8/ 9/2010: Leaving Tokyo Narita to Shanghai
(2) 8/10/2010: Visiting small-eating streets and Shanghai EXPO
(3) 8/11/2010: From Shanghai to Wuhan
(4) 8/12/2010: Sightseeing in Wuhan
(5) 8/13/2010: Reunion with a friend and his family in Xiangfan (1/2)
(6) 8/14/2010: Reunion with a friend and his family in Xiangfan (2/2)
(7) 8/15/2010: Return from Xiangfan to Yokohama