susys running away to sea

Bella

2009-01-19T10:39:00.002-01:00

What day is it? by an absent-minded retiree

2009-01-11T09:10:00.002-01:00

Yesterday I woke up convinced it was Sunday .. I had to check on the laptop ... definitely losing it!

So - today IS the Archers - and therefore IS Sunday. I have my online tax return to fill in, so the Archers is (are?) obviously a deferring tactic.

Looking out on the surrounding building site, it would seem snow has flurried on one side of the house, but not on the other - within a space of 10 feet. Odd. I hate this iron cold - it freezes the breath in my lungs - and yet, when I went to the Antarctic and round some of the southern ocean islands, I actually managed to overheat a few times. I'm now hibernating and getting SAD - thank goodness the sun's out today, at least. I might just go for a walk. Might.

The prospective lodger

2009-01-11T09:02:00.001-01:00

Well, not the Russian student (36 going on 70) - FAR too severe a young man for this rather relaxed, messy, easy going - and frequently 'familied' house .. he started off his interview by complaining about the (deaf, elderly) dog, the small visiting grandson (a destructive force of nature) and the dusty (unused) piano keyboard on the dining table .. all sources of noise ... then asked if the house was warm, and that his present radiator was twice the size of the one in my spare room ... then told me (alright, his English needed a bit of beefing up) he'd rather live somewhere where he could talk with a native English speaker (me), even if conditions were poor (!) ... I really don't think he'd have fitted in here, do you?

So it was never going to work! Oh, and he wanted to pay peanuts AND be fed ... what did he think I was - a LANDLAYDEE?

I fleece my lodgers - what else?

Oh dear - yet another extracted reply to a message

2009-01-08T10:00:00.003-01:00

I, on the other hand, am rushing around (for me) virtually non-stop! If it isn't lunch with friends, it's going to be coffee and narrowboats this afternoon .. oh, the mad social whirl ...

And another thing I've managed to do quite a bit of this year is to NOT spend money .. so far this year, I havent bought two narrowboats, a new bath, an eye-watering Roman blind, a pair of expensive curtains (got an identical pair quarter the price though - ebay!), or too much food (diet) - so the economy new year is going pretty well so far!

Oh, and bugger the age bit - it doesn't stop me doing anything I take a (cheap/free) fancy to - so hooray for the OAP rail card - bugger being 'senior' too. FGS don't witter on about being farkin OLD (I don't think you do, do you?) - someone recently kept on banging on about it until I could have smacked his silly face.

Am I feeling a bit feisty these days? Well, why not .. nothing to lose, lots to gain ...

Oh, and I've blocked someone on this site for the first time! That made me feel very good. hehe

Susy x

PS Where do you live? West country? Lovely down there, though the flatlands round here are pretty stupendous in a bleak way. I'm off to talk to a bloke about narrowboats this afternoon .... I think I'd better sew up my pockets, or cut off my hands ..

S

extract from an email

2009-01-06T23:00:00.005-01:00

I had a blind man here yesterday - he was late but I think that's cos he couldnt see where the house was ... oh dear, that's frightfully bad taste - it was a man about blinds for my bedroom .... oh ho ho ... anyway, the upshot was they weren't what I wanted - he said we all have to compromise (bollox to that about blinds ..) and was thinking of charging £225 for one blind. So I said no thanks, and we talked about chickens instead. I have another far far cheaper, slightly fiddly, but much better option now - I shall have to find some material now. Anyway, the thought of NOT spending that sort of money makes me very happy.

I'm on an economy drive this year - only buying reduced stuff in the supermarkets - well, HAVING to buy the reduced stuff, whether I want it or not :-) - and then freezing stuff, making things out of weird ingredients, you know the sort of thing.

I've also saved another heap of dosh by NOT buying a new bath - mainly because I couldnt find a bath with central taps to fit in my teeny bathroom. So - I shall get some bath enamel paint for the ding and get a shower put in (thermostatic) above it, and have the walls and floor tiled - oh and new taps for the bath and basin - all MUCH cheaper.

Anyway, on the financial downside but with no future regrets, the chap who did my conservatory is going to replace the front door and the window next to it, and the cloakroom window and the sittingroom window, and do out the end of the garage to make a proper utility room. And finish the odds and ends with the kitchen, and I've got a bit of electrical work. So that's an expense which will be well worth while. And he can start in a week or so - and it will make the place warmer and more useful. It looks as if the final structural stuff might be nearly over - so only maintenance and decorating as ongoing things. It's never ending really. I feel very spoilt in some ways - the staff have been clearing the garden for me - makes me very lazy...

Oh, and I might have found a dance partner! Now you're not to laugh, groan, or throw your hands in the air! I was approached a couple of days ago via a forum website (I can feel you cringing - grin) by a jolly sounding chap in Sweden - English, and soon to be returning here, end of Jan. Anyway, we were on msn so I asked if he'd like to go to dance classes and he said he would - well, what can I say? Finding someone to go dancing with, as a woman, is VERY difficult - hens have more chances of getting dentures - so I'm desperate here or else I shall have to a) dance with a woman, b) hope a spare bloke turns up at the class - fat chance, or c) wait like susy nomates for the teacher to have a space between other women. I was going to advertise in the post office - hahahaha - MAN WANTED! Maybe a card in a shop window is better? I dunno, but it's all rather amusing ....!

On the tooth front (thinking of hens) I've still got the bottom brace, and a gum shield on the top ones - buggers keep wanting to escape and go on voyages of their own round my mouth .... one of the women I met in China said why did no-one tell her teeth move all your life? Little beasts. Still, they're not too bad - I hope I'll be having the top two crowned/veneered soon, and frighten people with the glare every time I grin! I might have diamonds embedded just for fun.

Bella's slippers - I think lots of children want to wear their shoes/slippers/wellies in bed and everywhere else! I'd love to hear her speaking bellsperanto!

Christmas Day 2008

2008-12-26T10:55:00.002-01:00

Extract from an email:

"Gosh you'd have loved to have been here for Christmas chez les W* en masse ... loud noisy crowded arguing shouting chattering adults tripping over children small and large losing the dog who went for a walk to escape the mayhem brightly coloured wrapping paper all over the floor exclamations over the super presents peanut butter for T*(son) mulled wine and champagne and beer and that was before we even started lunch ...."

And now (Boxing Day) I've been making enormous (bought, not home-made) chicken casseroles, salmon in cheese sauce, chicken soup, chicken stock, and leftover vegetables fried with home-made fried eggs, and now off to eat trifle for brunch!

Happy Christmas to all my readers!

2008-12-20T13:15:00.001-01:00

Aaah . . Arent they cute

2008-12-20T10:54:00.001-01:00

Whatever next . . .

2008-12-20T10:04:00.001-01:00

Who let the dog in?

Im going to have to blog this

2008-12-20T10:01:00.001-01:00

Did someone say lunch?

2008-12-20T09:55:00.001-01:00

Stuffing the christmas chicken

2008-12-20T09:53:00.001-01:00

Arsonist!!

2008-12-14T10:37:00.002-01:00

The other day I decided to cook. We'd run out of suitable cooking oil, so I mixed walnut oil and sesame oil in the wok and turned the heat on.

And sort of drifted back to the laptop to order indoor fireworks for Christmas.

And looked up five minutes later to see flames reaching towards the little cupboard over the cooker ...

The irony isn't lost on me....

Contemplating the flames and a possible a solution, I decided against the smother with a teatowel trick as I didn't want to burn myself. This was just as well, as I'd forgotten the teatowel should be first soaked in water - flinging a dry cloth over flames ... dear oh dear...

Eventually, I carefully carried the blazing wok through the sitting room and out of the back door, coughing with the choking fumes from the pyrolising non-stick, but at least the flames were reducing pretty quickly. I dumped the wok upside down outside, and the last of the flames went out. I was reminded later that opening the back door could have fanned the flames back on to me... The whole of downstairs was full of gray smoke.

I have no heat or smoke alarm, no fire blanket and no extinguisher.

Although this ended ok - apart from cleaning the greasy blackened area behind the cooker, and the wall cupboards above - a ghastly, as-yet unfinished job which smears further and further as I try to scrub it - it's horribly easy to see how this can happen, and get out of hand.

Please don't try this at home.

Beat this one, NHS!

2008-12-11T17:51:00.001-01:00

seen outside a doc shop in Khayelitsha township, Cape Town

I promise, I promise

2008-12-08T10:21:00.002-01:00

I'll finish the S African trip .. but in the meantime, before I forget it:

The title of a book recently seen:

Northumberland - Strange, but True.

I'll vouch for that.

In which Thabang takes us for a trip to the townships and I swig maize beer ..

2008-11-29T22:01:00.002-01:00

Thabang bursts into the guest house in a whirl of neat black dreads, lime green fleece and the ever-gusting wind. He's taking us and four other people on a tour of the townships, those miles of shacks, tin huts and block houses spreading miles over the sandy flatlands beyond the city limits. A result of apartheid and enforced social engineering and forcible removal, the first sight of these shanty towns is daunting - and makes me feel like a prying whitey visiting an alien species in a ragged zoo. I'm uncomfortable - definitely not frightened, despite dire warnings about murder, mayhem and mugging back in the UK - and ask Thabang if anyone minds being stared at. He assures us they want people to visit the townships. And that's what we are - not tourists, but visitors.

We visit, admittedly, the legal areas. Not the better block houses, nor the illegal worst cobbled together bits of wood and plastic sheeting, but the middling wooden and tin shacks

Oh, eyes closing .... more later, peeps.

In which the Cape Doctor prescribes something for wind problems...

2008-11-29T21:40:00.004-01:00

The Cape Doctor is a health-giving wind, apparently, cooling former colonial brows red and sweating beneath their pith helmets. This one was more of a (what's a collective noun here?) Cape Med School? - howling and hurling grit into our eyes and making us walk at 45 degrees from the vertical. I've never known quite such a wind - and it lasted all the three nights/two days we were in Cape Town, joined by monsoon rains off and on ...

We were staying at a beautiful guest house at the foot of Table Mountain - all art deco and formal French gardens of lavender and white roses behind high white-painted walls adorned with armed response plaques as warnings to would-be robbers. You couldn't see TM, though, as the rolling gray clouds had fallen down the mountainside - not so much a table cloth, as a dark fluffy shroud. Mine hosts Mark and Ivan said it was at the cleaners ... And the little cable cars were closed due to the weather. So the famous landmark was off the list of places to see, things to do.

Instead, L had booked a guide for a township tour and a Cape Town tour with Thabang.

In which Qatar Airways plays silly buggers, my bag plays hide and seek and I meet the Cape Doctor ..

2008-11-29T21:15:00.004-01:00

Which tells you I'm back home - oh the relief to get back to cold gray drizzle ...

I don't think. Not often, anyway.

Actually, we had dreadful wind in Cape Town ho ho and torrential rain. Not the wall to wall sunshine we'd expected .. though it wasn't cold. But probably less than half the time was the sky bright blue and the sun hot enough to make you ponder skin cancer ..

Let me go back six months or more.

When an old chum suggests a visit to SA in November - and throws in the lure of tea with elephants - it would have been churlish to refuse, wouldn't it? So I didn't.

Which found me at the check in (Qatar Airways) at Heathrow just over three weeks ago, unable to produce the credit card which I'd used to book online. Oh dear, they can't accept that I've paid - SIX MONTHS PREVIOUSLY - a scam to make their checking-in lives easier, I suspect, in the guise of fraud prevention. I politely ask what makes them think someone else would be so philanthropic as to pay for me to have a holiday, and that I've got rid of this card some months previously to reduce my debts, and that in all my extensive wanderings this year, all booked online with credit cards, no-one NO-ONE at all has asked for my card to check it's really me ... What happens? Why I ferking get out another ferking card and PAY AGAIN, don't I?

Do I sound less than coherent here? That's true. I've still got to claim back £430 from the thieving beasts..

Anyway, we do get to board eventually, have a lo-ong flight via Doha, Qatar (it was cheaper), finally ending up battered and smelly in Cape Town nearly 24 hours later. We (L and I) lurk at the baggage reclaim. And lurk. And start making those joking, brave and increasingly desperate quips as bags came and went, until at last the luggage runway ground to a halt, as empty as our trolley. We peered into the dark hole where the bags had emerged, planning a new holiday wardrobe and wondering whether the insurance would stump up, when I spotted our luggage cowering in a dark corner. Ignoring official shouts to keep away, we grabbed our stuff and ran for the exit. Which is when we made the acquaintance of the Cape Doctor.

No need for a title huh

2008-11-17T09:32:00.001-01:00

Route 62 in the middle of the western cape. Yes im in s africa. No internet yet.

Lily in her hallowe'en witch dress

2008-10-21T17:31:00.001-01:00

2008-10-20T09:35:00.001-01:00

What do two beautiful people do to celebrate a birthday? Why, go to M on the Bund, Shanghai, of course!

Champagne on the open air terrace 8 storeys up, anyone?

Jack and some of his presents

2008-10-18T07:30:00.001-01:00

Bella at jacks birthday party

2008-10-18T07:27:00.001-01:00

What inventive bored little Chinese boys get up to ...

2008-10-16T04:55:00.000-01:00

Yesterday (Wednesday)

2008-10-16T04:35:00.002-01:00

Rachel and I went to the Fabric Market - three storeys of shop fronts full to the brim with rolls of all sorts of materials, and display dummies outside each one dressed in clothes to suggest ideas of what they can make for you. I've ordered a white cotton top, picking it up on Friday. The embarrassing bit was being measured by a tiny slender woman.

Oh, and I also bought a king-sized silk quilt for about 20-25 quid - which is half the price offered in the tourist silkworm 'factory' with silk wares department store built conveniently next door. No doubt somewhere along the line I shall find the first inch of my quilt is silk padding (the bit nearest the zip) and then amazingly it transmogrifies into polyester silk ... from the polyester silkworm, of course.

'Boo-yao, boo-yao, boo-yao'

2008-10-16T04:26:00.003-01:00

shrieks my little granddaughter, wagging her finger from side to side at me sternly.

'Yao, yao, yao!' I yell back.

Hee hee - speaking Chinese - her's is much better than mine, of course!

She's telling me she doesn't want me, so I'm shouting back that actually she does .. a rough translation ...

You come HALFWAY round the world

2008-10-16T04:18:00.003-01:00

nip into a supermarket - and what do you find?

SPAM!!!!

*Kong xing kai xin a!!!

And in loads of varieties - Regular, Lite, Black Pepper, Hot n Spicy, Cheese, Garlic, 25% less sodium, with real bacon (as opposed to unreal, like the rest of the 'meat'), and my favourite - the Golden Honey Grail of Spams - the Spamalot Collectors' Edition!!

And only 3 to 4 squids a tin.

Bargain.

(And for the sailing readers - Chicken Fray Bentos at a fiver ...)

No - I resisted temptation.

*You're having a laugh!!

Ferry . . cross the huangpu . .

2008-10-15T06:14:00.001-01:00

Tuesday 14 October

2008-10-14T11:50:00.001-01:00

Well, we've been up the Pearl Tower, used sharp elbows and cross (err, very rude) words to stop people just barging past in the queue for the lift down, been to the History Museum (excellent, but how Shanghai has changed over the last hundred years - or more likely the last 10 years), been to Txiantandi (sp?) which is a reconstructed area of shanty courtyard houses, but now loads of outdoor tourist restaurants - looked round a reconstructed house - which in the original would have been a horrible squalid slum, but is now furnished with 'antiques' and looks rather sumptuous - then ate at one of the ultra-modern restaurants (though Ray saw a rat running along the top of a window of the restaurant opposite ... ) Our food was fabulous. Is it better to know about the rat going into the kitchen, and eat there nonetheless, or to be ignorant of any wildlife where we were and eat happily? We had champagne (is this a habit?) and a cocktail and a glass of chardonnay, and I got lightly pissed.

Then we went through the pedestrian tunnel, via toy electric train, from the Puxi to the Pudong side of the Huangpu. Obviously a little train for kids, but the Japanese group and one of the English women loved all the flashing lights and running over the inflatable people on the line ...!!!

Then the usual death-by-taxi drive back to the apartment, where the driver is a maniac, goes the longest way round and ignores repeated cries of 'mandian!!!' (slowly!!!) from the back seat.

Caipirinhas - or Caipiranhas by the time I'd had a few ...

2008-10-13T12:17:00.000-01:00

Food, glorious food! (And drink ...)

2008-10-13T12:12:00.000-01:00

Living the (Shang) Hai life

2008-10-13T11:36:00.003-01:00

Sunday was champagne brunch day - well, isn't it always? It's my new latest habit ..

Rachel, Bells and I went to the 5 star Westin Hotel, Puxi, where, for extraordinary amounts of money and names put down at birth (mine), we strolled to the manner born amongst the rich and beautiful mainly western people of Shanghai. All the fantastic buffet food we could guzzle, all the champagne (Rachel) and Caipirinhas (me) and fruit juice (Bells) could swig - you name it, we probably tried it, including popping little choccy balls of squidgy creamy stuff every time we happened to be passing the display. Which was pretty often.

Food from around the world - and not just any old cheapy bulk produced food ho dear me no - caviar and lobsters, mountains of sashimi, exquisite Chinese little barbequed birds - all presented artistically and tastefully for the feeding frenzy. I've got pix.

Then, pissed and fat, we were entertained by classical music from a small orchestra, serenaded by a couple of Chinese opera (not Chinese Opera) singers, were tango'd by a steamy young Chinese couple, gasped at three Chinese girl acrobats whirling plates and each other, and tried yet again to see how the mask changer did his faster than the eye can see Chinese mask changing. Absolutely astonishing, all of it - I'd had enough Caipirinhas for a tear to fall down my face at the beauty of the singers ... I have no pix, sadly - I'd used all Rachel's camera memory on the food...

Susy's Chinese boyfriend

2008-10-11T09:10:00.013-01:00

Long ago and far away in Beijing, you might remember my close encounter with a Chinese man eager to improve his English and wanting my help with his pronunciation. Flourishing a giant dictionary which he produced like a rabbit from a capacious bag, I was rather persistently nagged to read pages of bizarre words, all beginning with the unlikely letter 'X'. Our brief encounter was kindly photographed by one of my new best friends, and I'm astonished it's in focus, given the knicker-wetting screeches of laughter seeming to come from a nearby pillar.

Notice my admirable composure - obviously we hadn't quite arrived at the word at which I broke down and couldn't stop tears pouring down my face. 'Xenophobia' ....

Forgot to say bye bye Exeters!

2008-10-11T08:13:00.003-01:00

I did for real, so that was good. We'd had a last supper at the New Asia Hotel in Shanghai, and then suddenly everyone was leaping up, kisses all round, thanking Kent for all his help and hard work, a few of us off to the bar for a drink, but the rest turned from Exeters (a small joke from a previous guide's pronunciation of the company we'd used, Exodus) to Exiters. I was going to be the only one left after 7.30 the following morning - when I rolled out of bed for breakfast, wandering down the corridor I passed locked doors to empty rooms. I felt a bit like a ghost at a long-ago party ...

I had Rachel's address written in Chinese, so I took it to the receptionist when I handed in the room key. Now for the always somewhat disconcerting and worrying situation - Chinese people appear to be unable to read their own language ... I explained where I wanted to go, and she, with a little help from her friends, added some more writing in brackets. I then went outside where several taxi men were waiting and this provoked another long and loud discussion (no-one decides anything without consultation with at least one or two other people, as no-one wants to take responsibility for anything).

I was escorted to one cab, got in, and tried to shut the door. Metallic clunk. Door still open. Tried again. Same. Taxi driver got out and tried. Same result. By this time, I've decided to sit in the middle of the back seat as far away from either door as possible. The driver wields a screwdriver energetically - this fare won't get away if he can help it...

But I'm ordered out of this taxi and into another one - now, do I trust these doors, which appear to work but might not, rather than those which have definitely refused to shut? I have no choice. The driver roars away, swings in a U-eey across the oncoming traffic, races down to the lights and brakes sharply. The rest of the drive involves the usual swerving across lanes, rapid acceleration, manic braking, overtaking on the wrong side of the street (I watch death play a game of chicken with me on several occasions), and generally behaving the way everyone does, vehicled or on foot, on Chinese roads - with an unfulfilled death wish. So I too will be immortal. Fingers crossed.

(Little diversion into real China: along with the mountains of stuff carried on the backs, fronts and under the feet of scooterists and cyclists, lots of people will also crowd aboard. Favourite sight - a daddy on a scooter, little son behind, facing backwards and reading his picture book balanced on the top box ...)

Here now at Rachel and Rodrigo's modern appartment (so new, the builders have been jackhammering above their heads for the last six months ..... ) in this hugely westernised area of Pudong. There's a world of difference between visiting somewhere and living there. And even so, as a tourist I got a glossed view of China.

(Another little diversion into real China: you might remember I mentioned I wasn't going to take a photo of the meat market in Yangshuo and posted a shop full of birthday cakes instead. The meat market was off the main street down an uninviting covered alley, sodden underfoot - with what? - and then you understand why everything is kept alive till the last minute due to the heat and lack of refrigeration. Nevertheless, it was still a bit disconcerting to see the still-life skinned spit roasted dog snarling in mid-leap across the cage containing his cute furry tail wagging brothers... or the ducks roped together in pairs and slung upside down across a pole. Ducks, I see, are unable to quack when inverted, though they can still manage a strangled squawk when hefted by the neck to their future consumer.)

Rodrigo is working here setting up systems for the Chinese farmers to export their blueberries beyond Asia. He's seen real China, and has had to eat some rare delicacies. Live octopus speared and plunged into boiling oil, for example. He's now learned he can say no. But one story he told me last night was something I'd only thought still happened in Mongolia - this is an ok story btw. And that's a rural habit of lighting a fire beneath your bed-come-table (obviously a fireproof one), so you don't freeze to the stone during the cold nights. Chinese beds, even modern ones in modern hotels, are still like sleeping on flat rocks - never flop down on one exhausted after a long day's sightseeing - you can injure yourself badly... no wonder back massage is so popular!

Hanging in Shanghai

2008-10-11T05:34:00.003-01:00

Today, Saturday 11 October

I've now had a chance to unwind a bit from the frantic, wonderful, gallop across China. I thought I'd be energised and revitalised and fitter after three weeks travelling - instead I woke up this morning feeling rather like death. I dragged myself to get ready to go out with Isabella and Rodrigo for a walk, while Rachel had a Mandarin lesson. In the lift I had to admit to exhaustion, went back to bed, and dozed for a couple of hours...

When I next got up, I felt a lot better, so leaving Isabella with Hong her ayi, who Bells adores, Rachel, Rodrigo and I took a taxi from the Pudong (brand new, westernised) side of Shanghai's river Huanpo, to the Puxi (Poo-shee - old, Chinese) side. We visited Taikang Lu, a maze of little alleyways in the old French Concession. The tiny old houses are now a maze of very expensive, chic shops and cafes and after three weeks of Chinese food and chopsticks, I had pizza and fingers....

This afternoon we took Bella out to the park, where the local school (Dulwich College I kid you not) was running a sports day/pre hallowe'en afternoon. Later I had a kiwi and banana icecream and found a great abstract dragonfly picture for my tattoo.

Tongli punt

2008-10-10T09:24:00.001-01:00

Peaceful sunny and wonderful

2008-10-10T09:13:00.001-01:00

I can blog from my phone - I bought a duff used (well, I would, but I didn't know it, did I?) memory card for my camera, and it wont work any more... Hoory for the phone I say! I'll put a couple of Tongli (beautiful beautiful place) on there, but sadly not too many as I ran out of credit .. and daren't do that again!

The food has overall been great - when Kent the Chinese guide chose for us - tasty, varied, lots of it and I was starting to bulge (more). Oh, except for the Mongolian equivalent of fondu - greasy boiled lamb fat, anyone? When left to our own devices, choosing from brightly coloured pictures - grooooooo!! Inedible ... made spam look appealing ...
(As I'm now at my daughter's and it's rather rude to be blogging/emailing/writing to you delightful people, this message will be copied on to the blog to save time).

My charming Chilean son-in-law is setting up the barbeque on the balcony of their apartment - his new toy, so I'll say bye bye for now. x

Kent our excellent guide

2008-10-09T11:13:00.001-01:00

Suzhou and Tongli and back to Shanghai

2008-10-09T08:46:00.001-01:00

Yesterday we went from Shanghai to Suzhou, which was a bit of a mix - yes, a pleasant busy lively town and we went to see a couple of the famous gardens there, but what I was expecting (wrongly as it turned out), was to be shown more of the canals. And the hotel was one of those ghastly huge modern conference centre hotels. Evening was much better - some of us went out for a walk over a couple of bridges, saw the buildings lit up with fairy lights, had a rather dubious meal, and then watched people dancing!! Ballroom dancing, line dancing - lots of them! All by the light of some dimmish street lights alongside the Grand Canal - I'd have loved to join in, but the line dance sequence was rather complicated and I was wearing flipflops.

Today, we went to Tongli, and wow what a rich town that is!! Probably the richest by quite a long way - on the outskirts they're building loads of very expensive houses and apparently they're being snapped up immediately. Tongli Old Town is of course mainly for tourists, but it's unbelievably cute, and we turn everywhere picturesque into tourist attractions too ... this time it was all tiny twisting canals - we grizzled for a boat trip, and piled into three large punt/gondola boats, sculled just like a gondola. I've taken pictures on the phone, but I'm out of credit, so I can't post them. Just too beautiful for words there! However, a cup of jasmine tea was 4 pounds sterling equivalent! Just for sitting at a canalside cafe ... We had lunch in a restaurant off the main square, much cheaper, but with the local speciality roast pork hock, which fell of the bone. I bought a scallop shell with pearls ... A fool and her yuan have been very soon parted, this trip..!!

Now back in Shanghai, and staying at the hotel here again overnight, as everyone else is going home early tomorrow morning and I'd like to say goodbye. We're having a goodbye meal here tonight. Tomorrow on to Rachel's - where I spent the day a couple of days ago. She and Rodrigo and Isabella live on the other side of the Huanpo in Pudong in a very modern appartment. I have to say Shanghai has been rather a disappointment - dirty and shabby and virtually everywhere a building site. They've got Expo 2010 coming up, so I presume they're doing for Shanghai what the Olympics did for Beijing. As the whole of Pudong was fields four years ago and is now miles and miles of brand new buildings, I expect they'll get it done in time - they all seem to work 24 hours a day. It makes you realise how political correctness, health and safety, greed and general laziness have slightly strangled the UK ...

2008-10-08T06:41:00.001-01:00

Judy

2008-10-08T06:33:00.001-01:00

2008-10-08T06:26:00.001-01:00

Nine lion garden

2008-10-08T06:23:00.001-01:00

2008-10-08T06:12:00.001-01:00

Lion forest garden

2008-10-08T06:10:00.001-01:00

Ancient water gardens suzhou

2008-10-08T02:06:00.001-01:00

The bund by night

2008-10-06T11:18:00.001-01:00

2008-10-06T09:32:00.001-01:00

Reflections

2008-10-06T09:21:00.001-01:00

2008-10-06T09:20:00.001-01:00

Yuyuan by night

2008-10-06T09:15:00.001-01:00

Pretty stylish tops

2008-10-06T08:44:00.001-01:00

yuyuan garden shanghai

2008-10-06T07:45:00.001-01:00

Ok its a crap day but shanghai is dull dirty and tatty. This is the best so far.

If this is what I look like after only 2 hours underground . . .

2008-10-05T04:07:00.001-01:00

Amazing

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And this was just one

Water caves near yangshuo

2008-10-05T03:57:00.001-01:00

Rehydrating with this luminous confection

2008-10-04T13:21:00.001-01:00

After son et lumiere and a cast of thousands against the stunning karst mountains . . Night night peeps x

If you cant read the awful photo

2008-10-04T13:15:00.001-01:00

Its the reverse of the knicker packet and says 'uncomplimentary' . . .

Check out the knickers

2008-10-04T13:10:00.001-01:00

In the hotel bathroom. . Sexy or what!

West road yangshuo

2008-10-04T08:33:00.001-01:00

No pix of the barbied dog in the indoor meat market sorry

Chinese birthday cakes

2008-10-04T08:02:00.001-01:00

Sum up and today, Sat 4 October

2008-10-04T06:40:00.000-01:00

Yes I do know it does seem that I'm nipping all over the place, which is so - basically from the river cruise down the Chang Jiang (Yangtzee), there was a smaller side excursion in a smaller boat to see the smaller gorges. Then an overnight train to Guilin, then immediately by coach to here Yangshuo, which has been simply fabulous - we've had a river trip chug chug (yesterday, Friday) to an ancient village, seen cormorants fishing by night (for tourists, but still spectacular, and something I never thought ever to see), eating outside (always amazing food, and what the Chinese eat when they eat out - Kent our guide has done us proud like that), and today another river trip on a (plastic) bamboo raft, stopping off at an old junky but working boat on the way.

I climbed the nearly 1000 steps to Moon Hill (see picture on blog) and nearly died in the attempt, but was escorted by a sweet woman, who fanned me all the way up, and laughed a lot, and talked about her children in her few words of of English. I told her I'd been to see the chang mao (pandas) and she understood .. and she and fellow guides laughed at the exhausted foreigner, who staggered on the the top of the mountain ... and so did I! Red, panting, mouth hanging open .. She might have had the grace to look even slightly wearied .. and she was carrying a coolbox of drinks! They might be slight, but they're jolly fit.

I love the countryside here - actually, this is the best part of the trip for me. I don't really like cities, though i can admire the fantastic emperors' buildings.

I'm sitting here wearing a garland of fresh flowers in my hair - what a hippy! (PS This email might be hijacked for the blog, but I have only an hour on the internet). Tomorrow I think I shall go for a bike ride with a guide. I've had my hair cut by a boy who looked like a porcelain doll, with the tiniest features I've ever seen - and a great cut!

Then on Monday we're flying to Shanghai, Tuesday free day in Shanghai, when I shall probably meet up with Rachel, Wednesday to Suzhou, Thursday to Tongli, and Friday this tour finishes and the others fly home... (smug git grin from the linger-longerer...)

No opportunity lost to exploit the tourist, of course, and even though there's a fair bit of hustling, if you do stop, the hustling stops, and they're very polite - this has been the case everywhere we've been, so it's not that bad at all. Funny bit - we stopped the minibus in the middle of nowhere to see ducks in a pond (I said to Kent if they were in England, we'd be turning them upside down to see the 'made in china' label - he laughed), and lo and behold this woman appeared, flourishing tiny carved ducks, aprons, embroidered bags and fans. Caryl said she must have been hiding on the roof rack .. Oh and yes of course, she made quite a few sales - including the fan I have sitting next to me on this desk.

We had lunch in the bike guide's house - she wears the trousers in that household - she sang to us while we ate, pressed rice wine on use (errm, not very nice actually), saying her husband made it and there wasn't much left (excellent marketing huh?). He did all the cooking, was rather self-effacing, and showed us to the loos (plural) in their enormous house in this village. I rather think they own the Sunshine Chinese Cookery School next door (big sign in English) as they're a very enterprising pair.

You know what - it's really enjoyable to be visiting a country which isn't destitute - far from it. Questionable history, questionable government, but friendly people - helped, but not exclusively, by tourist money. We might be shown an idealised, sometimes (but not always ..) sanitised, soft view of China, but hey - I'm loving being here.

Tonight if the rain keeps off (though it's warm and it was fun on the river to dabble my feet and get generally soaked through) it's son et lumiere.

Off now for a shower and my legs want a little lie-down. If I remember China for anything, it'll be the quantities of steps everywhere ...

Nearly died but i got to the top

2008-10-04T04:22:00.001-01:00

Moon hill guangxi province

2008-10-04T01:56:00.001-01:00

Hippy Susy

2008-10-04T01:50:00.001-01:00

Buffalo wallowing aaah Thats better

2008-10-03T08:49:00.001-01:00

Liugong 500 wear old village

2008-10-03T07:31:00.001-01:00

Carp

2008-10-03T07:19:00.001-01:00

2008-10-03T07:14:00.001-01:00

Phoenix bamboo and Karst

2008-10-03T07:06:00.001-01:00

Karst mountains from the river

2008-10-03T06:59:00.001-01:00

Rural china with water buffalo

2008-10-03T06:34:00.001-01:00

Slumming it in yangshuo

2008-10-03T01:07:00.001-01:00

Saturday - Sechuan province - land of the chilli

2008-10-03T00:47:00.002-01:00

It seems the entire city of Chengdu is at the railway station. It's the beginning of the national holiday week, and all China is on the move.

Signs are often in English as well as Chinese, and lose nothing in translation... we are exhorted not to stride, not to lie down .. as if ..

We go to the Sechuan Opera and stay in Emei Shan.

The Opera isn't a patch on the Beijing Opera, despite the best efforts of the clown, balancing a lighted candle on his head, and the sword-and-steel-ball-swallower (yuck). However, the puppet dancing and the mask changing was ASTOUNDING!!!! Kent doesn't know how they do it - right in front of us! Apparently only a few people can do it properly and it takes years of practise. And unusually, there was a woman doing it, too.

Eating out has been brilliant - Kent takes us to lots of different restaurants to try out the different food, from the better sort down to local places. Each meal costs less than a fiver - way less ..

What does one do on a Chinese train in the middle of the night?

2008-10-03T00:45:00.002-01:00

One practises one's Catalan dance en ronde outside the footprint toilet, led by Monserrat, singing and directing, until one of the train staff hustles us along ...

On the menu

2008-10-03T00:43:00.002-01:00

Goose intestines
Duck Blood
Duck Webs
Chicken Feet
Small Yellow Croakers
Pork Cartilege
Steamed or Sauteed Towel

Some of the party visited the local hypermarket, but didn't ask how much the live toads were per kilo.

By train to Chengdu.

Thursday 25 September - it must be the Terracotta Warriors

2008-10-03T00:22:00.003-01:00

By overnight train to Xian (pron. Shee-an) - couchettes and early morning coffee/tea delivered to our door. Soft sleepers for us - we were the girls' dorm - Tina and I and the nursing staff, Carol and Sandy/Mandy/Wendy.

On the way to the Terracotta Warriors - what do you expect to see from the coach window? Enormous tower blocks? Lots of concrete construction? The Sphynx and a Pyramid?

First we were taken to a medicinal herb market - under cover, but open air. I wasn't quite sure why we were here - picturesque, certainly, all the hessian sacks full of heaven knew what, including some very dead maroon beetles, all open to the air - but what would one buy? What was anything for? I did buy some 'saffron', though Kent did say it wasn't the real stuff. The local guide guided me away from a bag of pink pearls, scooped up with a scallop shell - 'Plastic', he said, dismissively, though they did look very pretty...

Then relentlessly on to the Terracotta Factory (never a shopportunity missed here). If I'd had a spare five thousand quid plus postage, I could have bought a life-size bronze-ish copy of one of the terracotta horses, complete with sweet neighing expression. Hard choice - the horse - or the facelift ... or another holiday or four ...

For those interested - the local guide called the toilets 'happy rooms'. Very accurate.

Once having not bought endless repros of the warriors, in varying sizes, we were at last bussed to the real place. And it's unbelievable.

They've housed the pits, the first one, the biggest, in something the size of an aircraft hangar - it's immense! (I need a Roget's for big vocabulary). The first thing that hits you is the dust - the smell, the visibility - it's as if the rows of soldiers, their horses, and the dividing walls are shedding. They were found smashed to bits, apparently done by the succeeding emperor's men at his orders to destroy all signs of his predecessor. So it's an astounding jigsaw puzzle to piece them together again. Only about a third have been done so far, so that's work for lots of people for years to come.

You'll have all seen photos of the warriors, but still in the pits are the rubbled remains, yet to be sorted out. There's only one warrior who has been found intact - a kneeling archer, his hands still holding his invisible bow, arrow pointing to the ground, ready to fire. The details are minute - down to the pattern on the soles of his boots.

The other two pits are smaller, Pit 2 containing four horses and their drivers.

Then there's a dimly-lit museum with two repro half-size chariots - one with a lotus leaf umbrella, the other an enclosed carriage, with a tortoise or turtle shell roof.

Again, a chance, if you haven't bothered before, to buy copies ..

Later ..

The Wild Goose Pagoda, and a jolly good laugh at the thought of a Fluck of Geese - but I think you had to be there ...

Oh and lots of kids in sailor suit school uniforms.

Still Wednesday - losing myself.

2008-10-03T00:20:00.002-01:00

On to the Lamasery - there's a huge (of course) amount of Buddhism going on in China.

I got lost in and among the several buildings, couldn't spot any of my group, and went to the wrong exit. Kent was getting a bit worried. Little did he know I would spring a worse surprise on him a week later...

Fu Manchu

2008-10-03T00:14:00.002-01:00

In the Pearl Market, I was accosted by a very persistent little old man, who was extremely keen to improve his English pronunciation. At least, I presume that's what he was after, as he was clutching a huge (of course) Chinese/English dictionary to his bosom.

He held out a tiny (wow!) tape recorder, opened his dictionary, and asked me in Manglish to pronounce pages of the words for him. Beginning with the letter X ...

Ignoring my two new friends laughing themselves silly and hiding behind a pillar, I politely started saying the words, with my beau repeating the Chinese as I spoke. But oh dear, I couldn't keep a straight face - and had to tell him it was because I didn't understand the words, not the absurdity of the situation ... and when I got to Xenophobia ....

Lunch was at a Chinese Pizza Restaurant! Where they also did rather bad Peking Duck.

Weds 24 September

2008-10-03T00:10:00.003-01:00

As a parting gift to the Dong Fang Hotel, I fused the electricity in my bedroom with the hairdryer.

One second, I'm shouting to Tina how marvellous this hair dryer is, then phhutt! And it isn't ...

Today, the Temple of Heaven, wearing flipflops in the rain, and of course millions of slippery marble steps. This was extremely scary, so I took them off, which made the proper Chinese tourists look very disapproving.

Later in the Pearl Market - a multi storey building built for the sole purpose of parting tourists from their money - I bought a bright pashmina, but the continuous hassle 'Lady, come and see this!' 'Lady you want a bag, a watch, shoes, jewellery ..!' was too much. Mind you, if you DID stop, they didn't keep on, well, not much anyway.

Les bicyclettes de Beijing

2008-10-03T00:07:00.002-01:00

aren't nearly as common now but electric bikes and scooters with several people including small infants aboard, are. Girls ride sidesaddle, clutching their boyfriends' waists, huge (of course) bags of vegetables obscure the footpedals, so feet dangle on the road, and only a rare helmet is seen, teutonic in style, orange in colour.

News from the toilet front (not for the squeamish)

2008-10-03T00:05:00.002-01:00

Guess who forgot to take her invaluable, rare and precious loo paper with her today?

Apart from the drip dry option, I had to blot with my knickers, now lurking in a quiet noisome corner of my bag. ...

Sorry about this.

(Out of date order - this is still from Beijing)

2008-10-02T23:56:00.002-01:00

Meanwhile back in the Forbidden City ...

It's simply huge, and in its day life was absurdly formalised and to our way of thinking, stifling in the extreme. Eunuchs ruled the place, really. Well, you gotta have some compensation...

Today, it's full of us common people, including unbelievably adorable two-by-two colourful children, who of course stared at the big nose with the bruised face (it's much better now).

'Hallo!' they carolled, waving and laughing at the weird foreigner.

'Nee How!' I grinned back - in Suseperanto ..

Later, I saw a line of two-by-two OAPs, all in red baseball caps. Cradle to grave behaviour!

Hotmail and China

2008-10-02T23:51:00.001-01:00

I don't think my posts are getting through - so everyone who's written to me - I'm sorry but I can't reply - at least, I don't think I can. I've been trying and also trying to find alternative routes. I'll keep at it. Sorry about this.

So - much love to everyone!!

Karst mountain and pagoda

2008-10-02T23:07:00.001-01:00

Latest hotel fab

2008-10-02T22:40:00.003-01:00

Ooops sorry - forgot to rotate it ... (rotated by the blog fairy!)
Yungshuo

Frilly blue velvet bed covers

2008-10-02T05:58:00.002-01:00

Train wuhan to guilin. We have to jump off at 5 tomorrow morning yikes

Yangtzee dam

2008-10-01T23:24:00.001-01:00

Overcast

Yangtzee locks

2008-10-01T23:22:00.001-01:00

Wu gorge

2008-10-01T08:41:00.001-01:00

2008-10-01T06:18:00.001-01:00

Lesser gorge

2008-10-01T06:15:00.001-01:00

River maintenance

2008-10-01T06:10:00.001-01:00

Emerald gorge

2008-10-01T06:07:00.001-01:00

The blue whale

2008-09-30T08:53:00.001-01:00

My new little boat

Palace of heaven

2008-09-30T08:01:00.001-01:00

Actually this is the gate of hell :)

2008-09-30T07:45:00.001-01:00

2008-09-30T07:40:00.001-01:00

Gate to hell

2008-09-30T07:34:00.001-01:00

Tuesday 23 September

2008-09-28T10:53:00.002-01:00

Queued round Tiananmen Square for quite a long, shuffling time to get into the MAOsoleum - he looked like a waxwork and had very little body under the covering blanket - very serious atmosphere, lots of yellow chrysanthemums (we did wonder if they were removed at the end of viewing time and resold to the next lot .. cynics as we are, but nothing is wasted here). He's been dead for 32 years, but portraits of him still adorn the money, and he's very popular. Easy to be popular when you're dead ...

Then we were allowed into the Forbidden City - along with what seemed like the entire population of Beijing, who have sharp elbows, don't know how to queue, and have no compunction in barging anyone aside.

Oops - dinner calls - more sometime later ...