Blogs from Jiangsu, China, Asia - page 7

We were up early next morning to catch the MRT to the train station to spend the day in Suzhou. The train was fast - it reached speeds of 270 klms an hour and forty minutes later we arrived in Suzhou. Once we left the enormous train station we got totally lost - we realised that the train station was new and therefore the directions to the old town in our guide book were useless. Suzhou is an enormous city - it is now the city in the centre of the Yangtze River Delta Economic zone - and the skyline was massed with cranes and half completed highrises. Once a haven for scholars, artists and silk manufacture there seemed little evidence of this from where we stood. However a motor cycle taxi took us to the ... read more

…..the keen amateur plumbers we have here are full of boundless enthusiasm, in inverse proportion to both their expertise & selection of plumbing tools. However they race up & down the stairs trying to somehow switch off the torrents of water which pour out of pipes & fittings because the water hasn't been turned off while they are dismantling them. Both Mike, straight after his trip to Hainan in the summer & George, having his bathroom sink replaced, have been treated to the bonus of an indoor pool in their apartments as the small bathrooms fail to cope with the deluge. With the humidity here of course the water seeps into any furniture & under the wooden floors creating huge mould problems. The plumbers have been promoted well above their level of competence & I'm pretty ... read more

TV show: (my bit starts about 6 minutes in...): http://www.yzntv.com/city/folder249/2014/08/2014-08-1681175.html …..the great triumvirate of things that foreigners in China have to live with but will never fully accede to or really get used to: 1. the usually poor, often really bad & not infrequently downright appalling air quality, though it's disturbing how quickly you feel yourself growing to accept, on what should be a bright summer's day, barely seeing the outline of a building less than a kilometre away. In summer on a bad day, when you step outside you're hit in the face with 35C+ & about 80% or 90% humidity but it looks like a midwinter's day in Scotland. This summer has been, & still is, at time of writing, grey, wet & humid, with a combination of moisture & air pollution making respiration ... read more

New photos on: http://s251.photobucket.com/albums/gg311/draftwrite/ …..Love China Day #1. One of the nuts holding the very useful lockable carrier on the back of my scooter has fallen off. It's loose & rattling. I pull up at one of the makeshift bike & tyre repair “shops” at the side of the road. A couple of armchairs, a selection of rusty tools, some old tyres hanging from a faded sunshade. The old fellow gets up from the chair & is surprised when I am able to explain to him in Chinese what the problem is. He roots around in a box, returns with a screw & nut & quickly fixes the problem. “Duo shao qian?”, (How much?). “Yi kuai”, (One yuan). That's about 18 cents Australian, or 10 pence in England. I try to give him ¥2 but he ... read more

NANJING: REST DAY Last night ate Salted Boiled Duck the speciality of Nanjing. The duck was probably boiled in brine. It was mildly salty and delicious and made you thirsty for a second SNOW beer, only 2.75%. Subsequently ordered other equally delicious dishes. 7 of us at dinner. Meal cost for a very satisfying meal and 2 beers ea. 61 RMB ( $11) This morning, after a very poor breakfast, walked down to the city wall. Nanjing old town is surrounded by a 33.5 km wall built by the first Emperor of the Ming Dynasty. Each brick used in the construction is enshrined with the name of the village in which it was built, and in some instances by the individual craftsman. The wall offered good views over this huge city. It was a blue sky, ... read more