After a straight run of classes since the beginning of the year, we were well and truly ready for a break. We picked up our e-tickets at Tianjin airport and flew to Chengdu. This city is the capital of Sichuan province in China, renowned for its hot, spicy food. Sichuan is also the “home” of the Giant Panda, and there is a panda centre in Chengdu where you can go and see the animals in a recreated environment as close as possible to their natural mountainous habitat. Upon arrival in Chengdu, we went first to the tour company’s office where we [View Full Entry]

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The journey from Chengdu to Chongqing took about four hours, and went through some of the most fertile and hilly land in all of China. We passed through extensive areas of terraced rice paddies, where we saw many of the farmers ploughing their ground in the traditional way, that is, using a simple wooden plough pulled by one or two oxen - no wonder that this area is called the breadbasket of China - and eventually caught our first glimpse of the mighty Yangtze River as we approached Chongqing. The Yangtze in this area is virtually the dividing line between the [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Hangzhou to weather that was slightly warmer again than Suzhou, after a two and a half hour trip, during which we dozed and read intermittently. We eventually found the queue for taxis, which was only about two hundred meters long, and snaked backwards and forwards inside well-defined barriers under a tin roof held up by rust and hope. On the way we were accosted by several “private” taxi drivers. These are people who own a car and offer to drive you in their “taxi” to your destination immediately, thereby avoiding having to queue up, but they also try [View Full Entry]

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We had teed up one of the taxi drivers to meet us outside the front gate at 9.00 am on the morning of Saturday 29th, and sure enough, he was there waiting for us, smiling, when we made our way to the gate. With the usual greetings of “Ni hao”, we were soon on our way to Tianjin airport to catch an 11.15 flight to Shanghai. Return air tickets and the hotels had been pre-booked, but transport between Shanghai and Suzhou, Suzhou and Hangzhou, and Hangzhou back to Shanghai were unknown quantities. However we felt sure, after reading the Lonely [View Full Entry]

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The prospect of going to England to see Andrew and Sue was exciting for us, as it had been almost twelve months since we said good-bye to them on Mallorca, and also because we had never before been to England, and were looking forward to greenery, clean air and blue skies! It was great to see Andrew’s smiling face when we at last got through customs at Heathrow when we arrived. Sue and her friend Christina were still in Cardiff, her graduation from Cardiff University having taken place the day before. Andrew drove us back to the house where he and [View Full Entry]

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