In the Footsteps of Royalty – 14,15 January 2012

A TV snippet regarding The Regent Hotel in the Royal Lemmington Spa, lead to a very enjoyable weekend away. The Regent claimed to be the largest hotel in the world, when it was opened in 1819, and one of the early visitors was the Prince Regent, who graciously allowed them to use his title as the name of the hotel. All things have their day, and The Regent is now owned by Travelodge, so we took the opportunity of one of their amazing offers, to book a huge family room for £12.

A heavy white frost blanketed the countryside as we drove to Warwick. We have previously visited the castle there, but have never properly explored the town. There are two other 'must see' sights in town, the Lord Leycester Hospital, and St Mary's Church.

The Hospital is not actually a hospital, but was set up as a retirement home for 12 soldiers by Robert Dudley, favorite of Queen Elizabeth I. He converted a 150 year old building to do this, the oldest parts date from 1383. Today there are now eight retired soldiers who live there, and we were given an introduction to the building's history, by one of them. All the buildings are original, with few modern updates. The Chapel is still only lit by candlelight for example.

In the museum, we watched an interesting film regarding one of the soldiers involved in the El Alamen during WWII. The battle was desperate, but an interesting fact for us was the inspection of the battle-field by NZ VC holder General Freyburg, who added his weight to the decision made to pursue the Germans and win out. The NZ Army then allowed the 6th Hussars to incorporate the fern leaf symbol on the front of their tanks, where it still is today.

Behind the hospital, is a lovely small formal garden, where the box hedges mimic the Tudor framework in the building behind.

From here, we explored the town and climbed the tower of the cathedral. The climb is pretty torturous, but the view from the top is great. The cathedral itself is worth visiting for the elaborate side chapels and tombs. Robert Dudley and his brother Ambrose have magnificent marble tombs in the very handsome Beauchamp Chapel

Royal Lemington Spa appears to merge with Warwick, but was built in the 19th century, when the spa was made fashionable by the visits of the Prince Regent and Princess Victoria, The whole town has a Regency appearance, and the handsome white buildings are quite dazzling on a bright sunny day. There is no sign of the recession here, with a busy high street (The Parade) full of colour and busy shoppers.

Apart from being a Regency showplace, the original Pump Rooms are still open with a cafe and restored Hammam. This has been restored to how it was in its heyday in the 1840's.

Sunday was again fine and frosty, and we continued the circular driving tour, that had started in Warwick. The most appealing towns on the tour were Stretton-On-Dunsmore, with its tiny village green and equally tiny stream with miniature arched bridges. Even better was Stoneleigh, with its handsome brick homes around a somewhat larger green, which houses the Forge.

After lunch in Kenilworth, we set off for the heritage Motor Museum, only a short deviation on out route home. Murray found this very interesting, as it appeared to have a very strong MG bias, with many MG's on display, a recreation of Lord Nuffield's office and we watched a 45 minute film in the cinema on the history of MG sports-car manufacture in Abingdon. We have passed the turn off hundreds of times, so finally had time to visit, and found it very interesting.

From the Birdsnest to London Olympic Stadium – January 2012

Only two weeks after walking around the Beijing Olympic site, we had the opportunity to take bus tour of the London Olympic Park.

After enjoying the new Westfield Mall in Stratford (and being tempted into a few purchases from the famous January sales), we met up with Ngaire & Stuart to take the 40-minute bus tour.

Tight security is already in place, and although we were not able to leave the bus, airport style security applied. The tour took us around all the venues in the Park, explained their function and future use.

We learnt a few interesting facts from London's past, in particular, the meaning of the surrounding area called Mile End. Pollution in the city was so bad, that a one mile exclusion one was set up, and all industry had to be over a mile from London City - hence Mile End. The consequence of this is that the London Delivery Authority had a major job cleaning up the contaminated ground. All the soil was apparently 'washed' and is now fit for purpose.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was pleasantly whiled away in the mall, another chance for the Graingers to help the local economy!

On Sunday, it was a chance to take another country walk from our front door. With broken toe now fully mended, it was a pleasure to do a seven mile circular walk to Rickmansworth and back via the River Colne, gravel-pit lakes (the gravel was used to build the original Wembley Stadium in 1924) and Grand Union Canal to our delightful Chorleywood Common.

We discovered two of our neighboring towns excellent food outlets: the Cafe in the Park in the Aquadrome serves wonderful Turkish food and the award winning Cinnamon Square bakery in Rickmansworth. We had to check them out, and agree it has the best home baking we've had in the UK.

Chengdu and the Pandas – 1 January 2012

We had, in our party, someone who was willing to pay £130.00 to “hug a panda” so this outing was the highlight of her trip. After a relaxing start and a breakfast that was definitely not 5-star we set of for the panda sanctuary.

We were fortunate to see a group of four adult pandas enjoying their breakfast, a couple of very young ones and then a group of six or so juveniles having a great rough-and-tumble time before they suddenly all disappeared inside their “den”. There were a few red pandas to see and then another few solitary adults which meant we saw probably 20 or so of the 70 pandas at this 93-acre park.

Lunch was again highly influenced by Tibetan foods and we decided that the weirdness factor in the food served to us had increased as the days wore on. But overall, we enjoyed the experience of the varied dishes we had sampled.

There was nothing left now, but the return journey to Beijing, and following the overnight at Beijing International Hotel again, we were enduring the 12 hour flight to return us to London in time for the new working year.

Xi'an to Chengdu – 31 December 2011

Although Xi'an is not a city to linger in or stroll around at this time of the year, we had a little time before our flight to Chengdu so had a “guided tour” of the city walls. The guide's input was buying the tickets and giving us a very brief overview before letting us wander along the wall. The wall is actually magnificent, and the best example of a complete city wall left in China,

Despite this, the dreary day and surrounding smoggy city reduced the impact of the wall. But fortunately this was enlivened by the colourful preparations of the lantern festival that follows Chinese New Year and the workers were busily constructing magnificent models of all manner of things from people, dragons, scenery to “Disney” castles ready for the big day.

From there we went to the local history museum where we were inducted into the art of Chinese calligraphy and were shown local folk art.

The flight to Chengdu was courtesy of Lucky Air, who were true to their name and delivered us safely in Chengdu, which was only marginally less smoggy the Xi'an and a little warmer.

Our 5-star hotel was well out of the main centre of town and while quite nicely decorated had a few odd foibles. It was New Year's Eve and this was the first VJV trip we''ve been on at New Year, where nothing had been laid on by way of entertainment for the evening. We were taken to dinner which had a fairly Tibetan influence and some rather odd dishes.

The group decided we would have to make our own entertainment back at the hotel. We discovered that there was only one “bar”, the hotel lobby, and then discovered that they only had one wine, a Great Wall white. It was quite revolting with a vaguely turpentine smell and fishy undertones. The glasses were quickly emptied back into the bottle.

Two of us set of to see what was available in the local area and came back with a couple of reds. One was sampled by a couple of people and declared disgusting so the other, a Great Wall cabernet savuigon was finally declared “survivable”.

By 11;30 we decided to retire and one couple was left finishing their drinks when the waitress came and asked them to leave as she wanted to go home! So much for a wild New Year's Eve in Chengdu!

Terracotta Warriors – 30 December 2011

We knew that it was going to be cold visiting the Terracotta Warriors but although we wrapped up well it was still absolutely bitter and there was very little difference between inside and outside the buildings. The advantage of putting up with the winter temperatures was that it is the off-season and there are no crowds blocking the views of the warriors. The queueing barriers that we simply walked past give some indication of the numbers that are on site in summer when the temperature inside the pit buildings is 40C

Before we got to the warriors we visited the local museum for an overview of the history of the area and then went to the factory where the replica warriors are made but even though these were “inside” destinations they were still very chilly and the sales people in the museum shop were all wearing their duck-down coats to keep warm.

The money spinner at the warriors is the fact that you can have your souvenir book signed by one of the farmers who originally discovered the buried army when they were digging a well during the drought in 1974. Of the original seven only four are still alive and they presumably make a good living by signing books and keeping the sales bubbling.

Although the buried army has been well covered in articles and documentaries, the scale of the enterprise embarked on by the Emperor is quite breathtaking when one gets to see the real thing. 40 years in the making with up to 720,000 workers engaged at the peak, it is a remarkable monument to the vanity of the Emperor who was really just a child when he began to build his own tomb.

The fact that there seems to be no intention of opening and exploring the reported wonders of the tomb itself seems odd. The official reason is “to preserve it” but if it is never to be seen then what is the point of preservation? The more cynical may postulate that they have a fairly good idea it has been well looted in the past and “preserving it” maintains the mystique. It is something we will never know.

West to Xi'an – 29 December 2011

Another three-hour flight to the west took us to Xi'an where we landed in the worst pollution we have seen so far. Beijing was not good, Shanghai was bad but Xi'an was terrible. When the pollution haze is discernible inside the atrium of the hotel and the local shopping mall you know there is a problem. Consequently attempting to take photos of the Small Wild Goose pagoda, our first stop after lunch, was an exercise in futility.

Although the lunch stop had an impressive name and was beautifully decorated we decided that the proprietor had invested his money in the wrong areas as the food was very mediocre.

The pagoda has had a chequered history and although it began life with 15 stories it lost a couple in an earthquake in 1556. According to the plaque, and verbal history, the tower has split and rejoined three time over the centuries as a result of earthquakes. If this is true the rejoins have been extremely precise.

Although we had free time in the late afternoon the outside conditions were not that inviting, but it was fun dicing with death crossing 8 lanes of traffic outside the hotel. There were white bars painted on the road surface but these only appear to be there for guidance as to where to walk, they have no relevance whatsoever to cars, buses, or the ubiquitous electric scooters.

How a busy intersection with 8 lanes of traffic entering from three compass points plus pedestrians works without traffic lights is a mystery, but the locals seem to cope with a minimum of fuss.

Suzhou – 28 December 2011

Suzhou is a “small” city (11 million) not far from Shanghai and just over 30 minutes on the high speed train. It is variously known as the Garden City; the home of silk; the Bridge Museum; and the Venice of the East. This last descriptor is rather generous and is simply based upon the fact that the town was originally built on canals.

Canals imply bridges and the 354 old bridges give rise to the Bridge Museum nickname. As the production centre for the vast majority of Chinese silk the third nickname is self-evident and the last nickname is due to the 65 Chinese gardens that have been preserved in the city.

Our first stop was at the canal where we boarded our “slow boats to China” to be serenaded as we were transported along some fairly dismal canals to the Garden of the Couples Retreat. Chinese gardens have a rigidly formal informality about them and as mentioned before must incorporate rocks, water, plants and buildings and both the gardens visited today were not simply gardens but residences where the buildings scattered through the gardens were actually the functional rooms spread throughout the complex.

After a visit to a silk factory where we learnt how the 1500m silk thread was extracted from the cocoon and woven, along with the obligatory buying opportunity we had another Chinese meal and moved on to the second garden, the Garden of the Masters of the Fishing Nets. Fishing had absolutely nothing to do with the garden, it was simply that the retired official who built it wanted to adopt the “simple life” and the life of fishermen were synonymous with simplicity. The two gardens were wonderful examples of the art of Chinese gardens and very different to that which would be seen in Europe.

As we had a couple of hours before the train was due to whisk us back to Shanghai, the tour guide suggested we visit another part of the city where they have preserved some of the old buildings and with them, the traditional markets. Most of the old city has been flattened and replaced with high-rise apartments so the city fathers, in their wisdom have protected a couple of enclaves to keep a link with the past.

The market was very interesting with live fish, crabs, shrimps, chickens, pigeons, ducks, quail and various other species for sale along with vegetables, nuts, seeds, fruit and all manner of freshly cooked delights. The historic buildings were all converted to shops and it was very pleasant strolling along without the hard-sell of some of the other tourist areas.

Once the high-speed train had whisked us back to Shanghai we were on our own for dinner so we set off from our hotel in a different direction and within a couple of blocks had immersed ourselves back in “real China” with street markets, not unlike the one we had experienced in Suzhou. A bright, clean local restaurant attracted us so we stopped for dinner as there was English as well as Chinese on the menu. We could have selected “Same tasty dish”, “Serve hot” or “Double bacteria on hot iron dish” as well as dog and various other dubious options but we played it safe and enjoyed another very cheap and filling meal. Curiously, the most difficult item to acquire on our two solo dining expeditions has been rice.