Off to Shanghai – 26 December 2011

The 0500 wake-up call was a bit of a shock but once we were on the bus at 0600 to beat the morning Beijing traffic the trip went very smoothly until we were on board the plane for our two-hour flight to Shanghai. After arriving in Shanghai and sending our bags on to the hotel we were taken to lunch at an ethnic Chinese restaurant and then to the Temple of the Jade Buddha.

The Reclining Buddha is relatively small and seems to be stuck in a shop area as a bit of an after thought which is curious since it is the rarest form of Jade. The larger jade Buddha is afforded all the prominence and glamour that befits its rarity and history.

Shanghai is an extremely impressive city and the major financial district has been built on the east side of the Huangpu River over the last 20 years. A great way to appreciate the city is from the river, so a short boat trip on the river had been arranged as our next activity.

From there we were dropped at the hotel which was near to the junction of the Huangpu and Suzhou Rivers and thus very close to both the Bund and Nanjing Road, which we set out to explore. As darkness fell, the city buildings and the passenger boats on the river became a fantastic light show.

Having enjoyed the lights we walked inland up Nanjing Rd to see the sights, window shop and find somewhere local to eat. Christine had a hankering for Chinese sweet & sour chicken and cashews. As we walked along a side road off the Nanjing Road, all the restaurants had touts outside, tempting us in. None of them seemed familiar with Sweet & Sour, except one women, who assured us she could deliver, even though it was not on the menu.

They had a similar meal, but with peanuts instead of cashew nuts. She came in to the restaurant with us and told the waitress what we wanted. There was some discussion over our desired dish and eventually the lady took the waitresses' order pad and wrote on it then promptly disappeared down the street. A few minutes later she returned with a bag in her hand, presumably the new;y purchased cashews to meet the customer requirements. It was a delicious and extremely cheap meal and so we retired to the hotel well satisfied with the day.

The Great Wall – 25 December 2011

“We Three Kings of Orient are” felt quite appropriate this Christmas morning as we visited the Summer Palace just outside Beijing. Three times the size of the Forbidden City, but mostly covered by the enhanced natural lake, this was the residence of the Emperor for seven months of the year. It is a fabulously beautiful setting with the pagodas, temples and quintessentially Chinese bridges dotted amongst the trees. It is a “Willow Pattern” fantasy on a grand scale.

After lunch and the obligatory shopping trip to a Jade factory we finally set off for the Great Wall. There are a number of sections of the Wall that have been restored and opened to tourists, in all about 20% of the 5533 miles that were originally joined together to create this defensive masterpiece. The point was made, at the entrance to the section we visited, that the Wall which was originally designed to keep foreigners away is now a huge draw-card welcoming foreign visitors.

From the car-park we took the gondola for the short ride to the Wall itself, arriving close to Tower 14 of the Mutianyu section. From there we could walk left to Tower 24 or right to Tower 1. We chose to walk uphill so that we could return on a downhill when we were tired.

Having arrived at the Chinese flag on Tower 24 we chose to ignore the “End of tourist area” sign and climbed on further to another tower. Clearly quite a few tourists do this as there were two vendors further along this forbidden section of the wall attempting to sell us drinks, postcards and trinkets. One did feel quite sorry for them having carted their wares all the way to the top but their location of choice was decidedly odd.

The sun was setting as we boarded the bus, extremely satisfied with the experience of walking the Wall in such wonderfully mild and clear conditions and being winter, without the hoards of other tourists.

All that remained to finish the day was the special Peking Duck dinner that had been arranged for the evening and then it was into bed ready for the 05:00 wake-up call.

Beijing City – 24 December 2011

Tianamen Square was our first stop and beginning at the Qian Men Gate (1360) we walked past Chairman Mao's mausoleum and down to the Forbidden City (1420). Although, at 98 acres, Tianamen Square is the largest in the world it is only about half the size of the Forbidden City.

Much of the Emperor's old palace was refurbished in time for the 2008 Olympics so we enjoyed the benefit of all the work done for that deadline. The Forbidden City encompassed 999½ rooms as heaven was believed to had 1000 rooms. We never got to see the half room so not quite sure on how that would be translated into reality. But even with almost 1000 rooms, they still did not have space for a toilet, apparently.

With gate after gate, reception halls and finally the throne room and then the living quarters, it takes quite a while to simply walk from one end to the other, without taking in all the side rooms and courtyards etc Everything is in mirror-image symmetry as befits the Chinese ying-yang philosophy.

Leaving the Forbidden City we were taken to the first of our retail experiences, tea. After a most entertaining and quite tasty Chinese tea ceremony, and the opportunity to buy, it was time for another Chinese meal and then it was off to the Heavenly Temple, a circular structure built on an artificial hill.

More retail opportunities were provided when we stopped at the Silk Market which has diversified well beyond silk.

Our evening treat was a visit to another hotel where there is a show giving a taster of Chinese Opera. After an audio-visual overview of Chinese Opera, four well known scenes were described in English on the screen then played out by the actors accompanied by English sub-titles on side screens.

Although the costumes and painted masks were quite spectacular, the high-pitched female voices and the accompanying stringed music rather grated on our western ears. The best piece was an assassin and his target fighting one another in the “darkness” in a tavern. The choreography of the fight between these two who “could not see” one another but occasionally “bumped” into each other was very well done giving a most amusing effect.

China – 23 December 2011

The 10 hour flight to Beijing passed relatively quickly, thanks to the helpful check-in boss. When we checked in, we checked the leg room in our Air China flight. When we queried the answer of 44”, the helpful boss must have decided to make good her answer, by releasing 2 bulkhead seats (reserved to the last minute for families with a bassinet), and we were able to stretch out for a pretty good (although fitful) sleep.

As the flight approached Beijing, we kept looking for the Great Wall. As we learnt at school, that it can be seen from space, we expected it to be easily seen from the air. Sure enough, there it was, winding over the hill-tops, complete with guard-towers. It was exciting to get this first glimpse of a man-made phenomenon we had known of most of our lives.

What did surprise us, was how long it seemed to take to fly over Beijing. But when our tour guide explained that Beijing has the same area as Belgium, then that made sense. (She may have been a little over enthusiastic as web research says the area of Beijing is 16807 km2 compared to 30528 km2 for Belgium.)

Everyone on the tour was very happy to accept the offer of a couple of hours at the hotel to recover before the first optional outing which most of us took. We were taken to the old part of the city where the streets are too narrow for traffic so the transport through the Hu Tongs was via rickshaw.

The traditional, single level, dwellings behind the high walls fronting the streets are based on quadrangles with strict adherence to the compass points for the various room uses. We were privileged to be able to visit a private home to show us the typical arrangements inside a quadrangle and although the land value in central Beijing would make the place worth more the £1 million the residence did not include a toilet, public facilities on the street provide the necessary relief.

After a fairly average Chinese meal for dinner we walked across the road to the Olympic Green park and down to the Bird's Nest stadium. Although it was bitterly cold it was great to have a look at this fantastic structure a close quarters.

Before being delivered back to the hotel we had a wander along the food market selling all manner of deep-fried delicacies; rat, silk-worm cocoons, centipedes, scorpions, snakes, sea-horses and so forth.

Old London Town - 17 December 2011

It never ceases to amaze us, the things that one can discover in London. There is a set of stairs by Temple Station that features in many movies set in “old London town” and right beside them is a building that we have walked past many times and admired from outside and which has recently been opened to the public.

2 Temple Place is an absolute gem; a Victorian Gothic revival, built as the London abode of the Waldorf Astors when they moved to the UK from the USA. With the funds at his disposal, no expense was spared on the internal fit-out of this town-house which is now owned by Smith & Nephew.

The building has recently been opened to the public as a gallery, currently holding the contents of the William Morris gallery which is undergoing refurbishment. This means one can see fabulous tapestries, paintings, tiles, wallpapers and sundry other William Morris/Burne Jones items in absolutely sumptuous surroundings.

Having had our fill of Victoriana we wandered outside to see that the next-door Inner Temple area had been commandeered as a film set for a new production of Great Expectations. Unfortunately the “heavies” near the entrance made it abundantly clear that the public were not invited to watch!

Crossing the Thames we set off in search of a photo-op of the, under-construction, Shard tower and stumbled into the back of Borough Market. It is never a hardship to wander through this part of London and having sampled the mulled wine we set off for home.

Christmas in the country – 10 December 2011

Every year we enjoy visiting grand country houses, decorated for Christmas. This year, the real treat was that the house we visited today, was very close to our new home.

Hughenden Manor was the home of twice Prime Minister – Benjamin Disraeli. It is a lovely liveable home, and today looked even more inviting, decorated for Christmas. Disreili was a friend and confident of Queen Victoria, and she even visited him there.

A fascinating exhibition explained the war-time activity conducted at Hughenden. The house was requisitioned by the army, and used for top secret work by map-makers. Like Bletchley Park, nothing was known of what went on there until very recently. The exhibition showed photos of the rooms converted into map-making studios. The maps were drawn from aerial photographs, and maps produced here, were used for the D-Day landings and the Dambusters raid.

'Downton Abbey' - 3,4 December 2011

After watching every episode of Downton Abbey, we couldn't miss the opportunity of visiting 'Downton Abbey' aka Highclere Castle, open especially for Christmas.

Even though it is only an hour from home, we decided to make a weekend of it, and booked a night at the nearby 'Bell at Boxford'.

A circular drive starting near Boxford, took us through lovely countryside and many beautiful villages. The best architecture had to be in the two big towns of the area – Hungerford and Marlborough. Both were prosperous market towns, it is said that 200 coaches a week passed through Hungerford in the 18th & 19th centuries, travelling from London to Bath. We had never properly explored this town before and it is really delightful, with a stylish Victorian town hall.

The road from here led through the Savernake Forest. This is a private road (although available to the public) and has deteriorated considerably since we last visited in 2007. The large and frequent pot-holes made driving with a small sports car very difficult.

Marlborough is larger than Hungerford , with wonderful 17th century buildings. It was delight to walk around the shops admiring the Christmas decorations.

Not far from here was Aldbourne, the best of the villages we visited. A large green, handsome church and cute houses, several pubs; it was a great spot to stop in. The church has two hand-operated fire-engines donated in 1778 after a disastrous fire in the previous year.

On Sunday we visited Highclere Castle, along with hundreds of keen Downton Abbey fans. The Christmas decorations were rather minimalist, but it was still interesting to see the castle again, as we now had the TV series to place in the various rooms.