Precruise Day Two Day Friday 6 September-Beijing Xuanwu district. Tried to have a big sleep in but by 7-30am China time I was awake and making use of the free wifi, but alas not facebook. We are staying at The Holiday Inn Express Temple of Heaven, Nanwei Lu, which is a short walk away from TheTemple of Heaven in the Xuanwu district of Beijing. It's a typical western style hotel with western toilet and bathroom facilities and a free buffet breakfast each morning in theGreat Room which has lovely views of the surrounding gardens. The buffet is a mix of western (or an attempt at this style) plus Chinese food, juices, fresh fruit,yoghurt, cereals etc. No fridge in room but tea making facilities, free bottled water, fresh white towels and hard Chinese beds! A ... read more

My trip from Jinan city to the airport was eventful,pouring rain & sleet, total darkness,blocked expressway to the airport, back roads from hell, I imagined if we had crashed my body would never be found. But...... I was dumped at the domestic entrance by my driver who has night vision and driving skills better than Brock and all those blokes combined, and found my way to international departure. A big sleep after the morning breakfast and hello HongKong. My business had arranged my hotel and airport transfers for me, I just had to follow the signs, easy, and by 1-30pm wearing multiple layers, hot sticky and a little shell shocked I found myself in LUXURY. I was booked into Harbour Grand Kowloon Hong Kong, 19th floor which has a club on this floor similar to airlines ... read more

Putting away the dishes this morning whilst waiting for my kettle to boil water for the pot of tea that is MANDATORY to start the day I had to break up the ice on the dish draining rack. Hmmm, yes it was cold overnight. I keep the window open a little in there and door closed to the rest of the apartment, but there is a radiator heater in there to take the chill off things, thank goodness the red wine may have frozen otherwise. English corner today and then lunch with Howard from Australia and 4 young Chinese guys. The top today was 0C but around midday today it was really cold, enough to freeze any water drops being dripped from the buckets being dragged up from the springs, into little icicles along the stone ... read more

Cold, chilly, grey skies and English corner. Getting dressed to go out now is a major marathon involving 13 items of clothing, underwear, undershirt, top shirt, jumper/vest, tights, socks, jeans, shoes, jacket, scarf, gloves and hat. But English corner awaits and a dedicated bunch of Chinese are there wanting to chat about this that and everything. And really I use it as much for me, to glean what the real Chinese people think. We talk pretty much without any filter, I try to remain positive but I do go near those tricky subjects of politics and religion and comparison of East and West. Today we got around to talking about the one child policy and the implications of this. China’s population is still growing as this policy is not as simple as it sounds. It only ... read more

You look at the jeans you have been wearing for the past 5 days and go, yeah sure why not; another day or two would be OK, it’s not as if I’m sweating at all. All the marigolds have been taken out of the flower beds and replaced with the “cauliflower” plants. Two colours, purple and white, they look just like cauliflowers. All the trees have lost their leaves and the trunks are painted white, a paint to reduce fungus and insects apparently. The trees are wrapped up for the winter in a fetching arrangement of a wicker basket. The large shops have a huge thick blanket at the front doors to keep the heat in and the cold out. You look longingly at the lingerie shops, but not at bras and knickers; but at long ... read more