10 Days in China: High Speed Rails and Cashless Everything

Ni hao. I recently got back from my holidays traveling across China. It was a wild trip with a massive amount to process.

1. High Speed Rail Network

Traveling between cities at 350 km/h on the Fuxing Hao train was surreal. There is virtually zero friction—smooth cabins, silent acceleration, and digital boarding passes tied to your passport.

# The speed of development here is palpable
Distance: 1,318 km (Beijing -> Shanghai)
Time: 4 hours 18 minutes
Vibration: A coin stood upright on the windowsill for 20 minutes

2. A Truly Cashless Society

Nobody touches paper money or physical credit cards. Everything—from subway entry to street food vendor skewers—is routed through WeChat Pay and Alipay QR codes.

[!NOTE] As an engineer obsessed with UX and frictionless digital flows, witnessing millions of transactions happen synchronously in sub-second intervals was fascinating.

3. What's Next

I'm back in Tiruppur, getting back into the rhythm of daily development and preparing some new web experiments. Life goes on!