Return from Xiangfan to Yokohama 2010/8/16 
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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.
At the China time of 23:59, 2010/8/14, the nephew of the 10-year friend took me to the night train at the Xiangfan station. The last trip started this way, taking a whole day to end when I returned home in Yokohama at the Japan time of 01:00, 2010/8/16.
We reached Wuhan at 5 of the next day, 8/15. The nephew pulled the heavy suitcase of mine to a Taiwanese restaurant and we had a breakfast there. Knowing where to ride the superexpress "
", we took a taxi near the boarding gate, eventually for a very small distance. The superexpress D3008 was to leave the Hankou station 3 hours later. The waiting room is not so large as that of the Shanghai Hongqiao station, but incredibly larger than any train waiting room in Japan.
The illuminated display at the boarding gate:
D3008 is the train that we were going to ride. "
" may be the departure time.
The waiting room had also an illuminated timetable display,
changing from time to time. Enlarged as shown below:
The second red line is the train we were to ride. The third is a fast train to Xiangfan.
The above display was confirmed in the printed timetable:
The red arrow is the train "" we were to ride, and the blue is the fast train bound for Xiangfan.
The above two trains can be seen in the following picture of the platform:
The right train is bound for Shanghai, and the left for Xiangfan.
The right half of the illuminated display in the above picture is enlarged as:
As found in the preceding printed timetable, the fastest train between Wuhan and Sganghai is D3016, having no stops to take 4 hours and 15 minutes for a distance of 700 km. On the other hand, our train has many stops and takes 5 hours and 35 minutes. I saw two other trains passing ours at two stations.
Our train ran at a speed of 250 km/h.
Two salesgirls frequently passed by, pushing a sales cart:
A lady conductor moves around:
Two seatrs on the left and three seats on the right.
Our train arrives at the Shanghai Hongqiao station at 13:50, about 15 minutes later than scheduled. We then moved to the underground taxi station, riding a taxi to the Pudong airport, 70 km away.
I was to board the Air China flight, CA0157, that was to leave Terminal 2, and the taxi ran a little further. I checked in at the counter and parted from the nephew at the boarding gate. He kept waving his hands until I passed out of sight.
The flight was scheduled to leave at 17:05, about 2 hours later. However, it came to the gate at 18:08.
The time shown in the above picture is based on the Japan time. Subtract one from it for the China time.
After I got on board, the passengers had to keep waiting long. I asked an attendant if I could move to one of the two empty seats next to me. She said, "All full". A long time had passed till the many remaining seats were filled with a group of Chinese tourists to Japan. The aircraft left Shanghai at 19:03, 2 hours behind.
While flying near Osaka, a display showed:
8/15/2010,
Japan surely broadcast commemorative ceremonies, while China showed repeatedly the flood disasters on TV.
The flight reached the Tokyo Narita airport at 22:50 of the Japan time. I then rode a bus to the parking lot to pick up my car. It was the same lot that I used 9 years ago when I visited Hunan, China. I drove the car and reached home at 01:00, 8/16/2010. The one week travel to Xiangfan was very much pleasant, though I felt a little tired. My thanks for the warm reception given by the friend and his family are beyond description.
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