So, finally I also left Kunming.
I wasn’t so isolated in my capsule and I could hear people leaving, and I was worried I’d miss my train if my alarm hadn’t gone off, but it was only 1:30 a.m. This happened twice more, and it was too much for me to continue sleeping. So I went to the train station even earlier.
I’m not sure what a reasonable and efficient train station is for a city of 10 million people, but modesty and restraint aren’t guidelines for architecture in many countries, and China plays in the top league. Many functional buildings seem too big to me. How much concrete could be saved if only the necessary was built (which anyway is too much because we are so many people in the world!).
The train was the first true high-speed train (295 km/h) for me on this trip. We alternately raced through beautiful (I had only blurred photos!) and apocalyptic landscapes and passed cities with that strange mix of skyscrapers and ordinary buildings that you find in many Chinese cities.
In the meantime, I passed information on via WeChat (Jing, mainland) to WhatsApp (Yvonne, Taiwan). Sometimes we “met” via email, which was quite stressful for someone who isn’t digitally inclined. But finally, we agreed that I would only take the ferry Fuzhou-Nangan (already Taiwan) and then Nangan-Keelung, hopefully arriving in Taiwan by Sunday at the latest, because there are no ferries to Keelung on Monday, and then I would arrive in Taiwan only on Tuesday.
The stay and tours on the three Matsu Islands were to be compressed into one day and shifted to the end of my Taiwan days. This was a compromise, but if I skipped it entirely, I wouldn’t get a refund.