What story to tell?

After weeks of having so much to rabbit on about, the days at home spent catching up and just enjoying quietly could seem dull in comparison.  Of course, for me, they are nothing of the sort, because I love the times when I can just “be” almost as much as I love the times when I “do”.

Actually, on Tuesday, my work took me through some of the most glorious parts of Gloucestershire, into the neighbouring county of Oxfordshire.  I always love the drive there, through Cirencester, Bibury and scooting  past Burford and Witney towards Bladon and Blenheim.  If you’re familiar with my neck of the woods, you might recognise Arlington Row in Bibury in the picture above, but as you can see, on Tuesday, it wasn’t really looking at its best.

After all I said about the Chinese landscape being very beige and grey, I had to admit to myself that Gloucestershire wasn’t looking that colourful on Tuesday, either.  But at least there’s a little bit of green in there and the landscape seemed to me to be cosier, more comfortable and a good deal less bleak.

  

But the weather isn’t exactly cosy and comfortable and our hopes of Spring are being sorely tested. The little primroses in the garden are getting a real battering in gale force winds and heavy rainstorms.

And then, this morning, we woke to this, which actually makes it quite a good day to stay indoors and enjoy being at home.

The Journal

Now I’m home, I’m steadily going through the ephemera and gathering my journal and “project life” pages together.  I thought it might be useful to review how the pocket journal held up to the trip and how I managed to keep my daily journalling going.

The pocket journal itself remained on my desk in our suite and I simply put a few journalling cards in my pocket each day to scribble on as and when I felt like it.  when I returned at the end of the tour, I’d tuck the cards in the appropriate pocket, along with any other ephemera I had collected.  Anything that I wanted to keep but which didn’t seem to fit in the pocket, I put in the small concertina file I’d taken along with me, too.

But somewhere around half way through, disaster struck.  The quantity of stuff that I was collecting caused the flimsy acetate binding to tear and I needed to do a running repair with some washi tape – itself not the strongest of media.  But it held out ok and I simply took care with it for the rest of the trip.

By the time I got home, I had a very full book and I realised that I hadn’t allowed enough “breathing space” on the spine.  I ought to have been a little more generous with those measurements.

The other design issue was as a result of cutting it out with the Silhouette.  The “scored line” is actually a perforated line, and you know what happens to perforated lines, don’t you?

Another lesson learned, though most of the book had withstood the journey fairly well.

First job was to cut the binding string and remove the acetate spine.

I reinforced the torn pages inside and added another layer of paper to create a stronger construction.

I then taped the sections together more securely – I think it was unreasonable to expect a piece of flimsy acetate to hold it all together with hindsight and this time, I chose some Japanese adhesive fabric tape – bought in Japan, needless to say ;-)

When I’d done, it looked a bit like medical sticking plaster which rather amused me. Had I been able to get a better colour, then it might have looked more artful, but hey, sometimes an elastoplast/band aid is exactly what’s needed, isn’t it?

It was holding together much better so I replaced the stitching using the same red and white butchers string.

I wasn’t sure whether to cover this up at this stage

or to leave the spine stitching exposed.

I decided to leave it open and cut the paper (almost!) flush.

I added a title and finished the cover off and it’s done.

It’s now sitting on my shelf with the other travel journals.  I think soon, it will be time for a bigger shelf, don’t you?

Was it only yesterday?

That we were in Tiananmen Square?  Walking along the footpath with hundreds, no thousands of Chinese people enjoying the fine Spring weather there in the heart of the capital city?

Today, we had a relatively civilised start to the day since we weren’t scheduled to leave the hotel until 8.30am.  Sadly, we missed Jane and Allan’s departure at 6.30, but we made it down to breakfast before Ellis and Mary went off on their day visit to the Great Wall and were able to say goodbye…for now.

It was another dusty day in Beijing and fortunately the traffic wasn’t as busy as we feared, so we were at the airport in good time.  After all, I had Yuen burning a hole in my pocket – no point in bringing it home, since it’s one of those currencies which can’t be exchanged outside the country.

Beijing airport is vast and makes Terminal 5 at Heathrow look quite cosy in comparison.

We smiled at the “charging station” and wondered if the owners of the phones/laptops needed charging too?

 

I found some useful size tins of Tiger Balm (well, Dragon Balm in China), which we find a handy cure-all when travelling (insect bites, fuzzy heads, stuffed up noses, achy limbs….marvellous stuff!) and a couple of small gifts too.  But whilst looking around and trying to work out the best combination of things to use those last Y24 I spotted the identical scarf to the one I’d bought in the museum in Shanghai.  Hmmm…this was duty free, so how much could I have saved?

Would you believe this one was more expensive?  That I paid Y400 and here, the price tag said Y680?  Duty Free?  I spent my Y24 on some peanut brittle sweets I recognised as some we’d enjoyed last week and moved right along with just 500 of whatever they are – half a yuan, 5p – left.

Before I left, though, I took the chance to sample some hand cream, making sure I sampled a “good” one – look at the price, Y810.   That’s £81 or well over $100!

We’d spotted Jane and Allan’s plane out there on the tarmac and gave them a wave – not that they’d have seen us of course, but we waved all the same and after an hour or so in the lounge we were boarding and on our way home too.  Ours was an uneventful flight, I was glad of the chance to watch “Life of Pi”, snoozed a little and then watched “Silver Linings Playbook”.  The ten and a half hours went in (nearly!) a blink of an eye.

The Chinese Authorities had one last surprise for us when we got home, though.  Trying to log into various online accounts, we find several of them (Google, Yahoo and the like) have been disabled and require new passwords and so on.  We realised that China didn’t allow use of Google and Facebook but I don’t think either of us realised the implications.

Thank you, China.  It’s good to be home!

Saturday afternoon in Beijing

Sadly this morning, it was time to say goodbye to our favourite ship and begin our journey home.  The first stage was to drive that awfully boring road from Tianjin to Beijing, three hours of pretty unrelentingly dull landscape with our Chinese guide, Ken, talking almost non stop. 

As we neared the suburbs, there were more private cars, the apartments appeared to be occupied and the scene was of a more liveable nature.  Still, the predominant colour was beige and grey, however, and the outlook remained bleak.

The inevitable building sites were all around, still, and the traffic as heavy as it had been yesterday afternoon.  Driving here must require immense patience.

Nearing the centre of the city, the streets became more commercial and there appeared to be more of the hustle and bustle one might expect.

But crossing over a busy road as we approached our hotel, my hero and I agreed that Beijing was more or less as we remembered it.  Grey, dusty and a little soulless.

Thankfully, our hotel is anything but.  We are here for just the one night, because BA don’t fly to London on a Saturday.  Our friends are here too – one couple came with us from the ship, the others are staying a little longer to do some more sightseeing.  We felt pleased to be here, glad to have “normal” internet (minus google, facebook and anything else the Chinese would rather we didn’t have) and were happy to kick back and simply have a bit of peace and quiet.

We had no plans.

But after about an hour, having refreshed ourselves and got tired of twiddling thumbs, we thought we’d explore the mall which adjoins the hotel.

Oh my.  Gucci, Hermes, Dior…at Chinese prices, ie almost double the price of such things at home – not that we buy these things anyway.

We looked at a supermarket which was a dead spit of Waitrose and spent a happy half hour mooching around.

By the ice rink (yes…really) we chatted to a young British/Australian couple with a small daughter who were as mesmerised as we were.  They told us they had just moved here and were still finding their way around.  Leaving them to watch the skaters, we mulled over the practicalities of bringing up a small child here and reached the conclusion that it might prove to be somewhat of a challenge.

Spotting a ColdStone Creamery there amongst the snack bars and coffee shops, I suggested we take a break and think what we might do for the next hour or two.  Though the public rooms of the hotel are fresh and glitzy, our room is a little dated and not exactly somewhere we wanted to spend all afternoon.

But just a minute, didn’t I just spot a sign pointing to the subway?

And don’t I recall noting that this line – Line 1 – goes right into the heart of the city?

How about it?

Neither of us had a coat on, we had no map, no guidebook, nothing.  But life is an adventure, yes?  Come on!

Taking pictures the whole way, so we’d have a reference for finding our way back (at this point, we didn’t even know the name of this station, except I thought it began with a letter G), we made our way to the barriers and ticket machines.

A 2Y flat fare (20p) wasn’t exactly going to break the bank and, looking at the map, my hero came up with an idea for our destination.

We gathered up a map

and armed with a single journey ticket each, we went down to the platform and waited for the train.

It was absolutely packed, just like a Japanese rush hour train, but rather less gracious and with a little more pushing and shoving.

Indeed!!

We travelled five or six stations, pushed and shoved our way off the train and around fifteen minutes after enjoying our ice cream we were here.

In Tiananmen Square!

But our first attempts to walk along the path were denied.  Policemen and Army officials blocked the way and there appeared to be some kind of official motorcade passing by.  At that point we remembered, it’s the Party Congress or something going on, the new President and Prime Minister have just been appointed and we guessed that these were officials and other dignitaries attending some do or other.

And then we turned around.

Oh! this was the new Performing Arts Centre we had heard about in a lecture on the ship, though in reality it wasn’t quite as blue and shiny as we expected it to be!  Nevertheless, we were pleased to see it and even if we couldn’t walk all the way round it, it was a fine spectacle and a nice surprise.

Ok, so, we have no map, no guidebook, no coats.  But we feel quite comfortable, it’s mild and there’s not a breath of wind.  Can we remember where to go from the last time we were here?

Let’s see.  We got off the train at Tiananmen Square West and had thought we’d walk to T S East to ride home again.  That seemed like a simple expedition that we could manage, so if only these policemen would let us walk in an easterly direction, we’d be ok.

But we’d better behave ourselves, hadn’t we?

We decided the best action to take was to follow the crowd – and oh my, was there a crowd to follow!  We found a subway to cross over to the other side of the road and simply fell into step with everyone else.

Lo and behold, just a couple of hundred yards along, there we were.  In Tiananmen Square itself.

And just behind us, the good old Chairman was looking benignly on.

At this point, I found myself feeling quite overcome.  After all, it’s one thing to set off with the intention and a programme in mind, planning to visit one of these great places with a guide and a commentary.  But we had simply pottered out of the hotel to buy an ice cream and look where we ended up!  How neat was that?!

I pinched myself, told myself that yes, I am in Beijing and it’s hardly surprising that I found myself here this afternoon.  But all the same, inside I was bubbling with excitement.

Of course there were a few others here too.  At times, the police steered us through a checkpoint and random search of bags and belongings, but we were never called aside in spite of being the only Western faces in the crowd.  (Surprising, that…we thought there would have been many western tourists here)

 

It was fun to linger, to look and simply be here for a while.  A gentleman brought his young son over and asked if he could take our picture with the boy.  Of course, we agreed, and posed for what must be a very strange portrait!

The Square itself was full of parked coaches from all those officials who’d sailed past us earlier, and we couldn’t see a way to get into the middle.  So, we contented ourselves with simply walking along one side of the square, past the Tiananmen Gate.

Admiring the painted roof of course, as we passed – though thinking that we’ve seen rather more impressive painted roofs these last few days.  But this was the original, the first such painted roof I ever saw and I can remember the deep impression it left on me when I first caught sight of it.

Then, of course, my hero suggested we go through the gate, see what’s on the other side and yes, continue to follow the crowd.  So we did.

The afternoon was turning out in a most unexpected way!

Though the paintwork was rather shabby and peeling away in places, the colours and patterns up there are simply lovely, don’t you think?

But my hero was getting antsy now.  How long was it going to take us to get back?  Would we be able to access the East subway station or would the police steer us back to the West?  Perhaps it was time to be making our way back.

And so, we found the subway station with no problem at all, took the escalator down to the ticket machine and bought another couple of tickets before going through the barrier again.  Entering the station involved another bag check, too.

Amused by the illuminated advertising signs on the subway walls, which are programmed to be still as the train passes by them, we were soon back at the station where we started – Guomao.  We retraced our steps and in no time at all,

We were back!

Our dear German friends have a word for such spontaneous behaviour – fetzig.  My hero and I are generally planners, we don’t do fetzig as a rule, which might explain why, when we do, we feel quite thrilled by the outcome.

That’s how we spent Saturday afternoon in Beijing.

Tianjin

If Dalian was new to me, then Tianjin was a complete unknown.  All I “knew” was that it was the port for Beijing and therefore, the last stop of our adventure.

It was a quiet and subdued bunch then, who met for the last ticket-issuing session in the theatre this morning.  We’d spent a while packing up our luggage, beginning the process of sorting out everything in preparation for our journey home and yet had a long day ahead of us, in our case, a city tour of Tianjin.

It had been a mystery why, on this last day, the city tour was to last eight and a half hours, especially since we were actually docked in Tianjin.  Was there really so very much to see in this place?

As we began the drive from the port, we began to understand why.

The port itself is on a vast area of reclaimed land, some 75km from the city itself.  The drive along the highway took us through areas of flat, barren landscape, windswept and bleak without a sign of habitation, apart from wide roads which seemed to lead to nowhere.

Some areas were still being drained and here there were gangs of workers, pumping water, digging and covering the land with polythene.  My goodness, what a desolate place this was.

Yet, here and there were vast building projects.  Huge tower blocks of condominiums and residential property, out here in the middle of nowhere.  Who would live here?  Well, for now, no one, because most were empty shells in a landscape of temporary builders’ accommodation and marketing hoardings with names such as “Dream in Mansions”.

Interspersed with the new build tower blocks were rows and rows of containers, stacked by the road.  Mmm.  Nice outlook!

As if they had found some leftover concrete and felt something needed to be built from it, here and there were huge flyovers, some with traffic but some going nowhere, ending abruptly in mid air.  And of course, underneath was the same old windswept earth with the occasional puddle.

We gaped, open mouthed and really couldn’t quite believe the scale of all this development, nor understand the purpose, since there really wasn’t anything anywhere nearby to hint at why someone would come here.  Unless of course, they might be persuaded…

Mile after mile, one development after another, this one rather European in style with half-timbered gable ends and a semi-detached appearance to the houses.  But still, all empty, incomplete and standing in a wasteland.

Eventually, of course, we reached the outskirts of the city, though the theme of huge building development continued.  It appeared that large swathes of the city had been flattened to make way for more tower blocks, posh hotels and swanky corporate headquarters.

Wide streets drew the eye to new, modern bridges and the city’s inhabitants crossed the road at their peril in spite of there being a zebra crossing marked.

Our first stop was the Jing Yuan Garden – not so much of a garden as an historic house.

The house had been the home of Puyi, the Last Emperor (if you’ve seen the film?) after he’d been deposed.

We watched a short film about him and his sad and somewhat tragic life and then looked around the reconstructed rooms.  I was more interested in the man himself and the rather touching personal photographs of him and his family.

I was interested to see a pair of his spectacles there in the display too, for as you can see from the photographs, they were part of his very distinctive appearance.

Since most of the furniture in the house was reproduced to enable it to be used for official functions, I didn’t really find much of interest in the layout of the rooms.

I did, however, rather like the distinctive door furniture.

As we were mooching around the house and garden, we could hear music from a loudspeaker and the voices of children, which appeared to come from the school opposite.  Of course, we had to investigate, so abandoned Puyi’s home in favour of nosing through the school gates to watch a little rehearsal of a performance by some schoolchildren in a corner of their playground.  Very charming it was, too.

(I worry a little about taking photographs of children here, bearing in mind that such behaviour would be frowned on at home, so deliberately left this one in long range.  However, like many others, I find it hard to resist capturing the sweet little children dressed in the most cute outfits, especially then their parents appear to be happy to have their children photographed.  I’ll keep those pictures private though and apply the same respect I usually do here)

Back in the bus then and another long trip across the city, along wide roads lined with new skyscrapers and more building projects.

The traffic was heavy but kept moving, though in places, was somewhat chaotic,

The rules of the road are open to interpretation – can you believe that the black car there in the middle of the photograph is parked?  This was outside the restaurant where we stopped for lunch.  Good, recognisable Chinese fare, tasty and hot - and plenty of it, too.  There was also the added entertainment of the ladies’ loo, which was of the stoop variety with no lock on the door, a hinge which swung open unless held closed and which, with less than three hands made for “interesting” usage.  But, of course, we manage!

Off again, watching the young woman take her life in her hands at this busy junction where no-one really follows convention but rather goes for it in whatever way they can.

We were heading for the Tianjin Yangluiqing Woodblock New Year Pictures Museum next. These are the traditional Chinese artworks which were hung at New Year…hence the name.

Highly symbolic, the most popular design features a baby with a fish (I’ll add links at some point when I have more reliable access to the internet)

Having carved a piece of wood with the design, tracing it from a drawing on paper, the wood block is inked and a piece of rice paper laid over the inked block and pressed down to create a print.  The print is then further drawn into with brush and ink before colouring with Chinese watercolours.

This last stage is worked in series, with the printed outlines glued with rice glue to a solid block to prevent warping and buckling whist painting.

We wandered around a while, looking at various displays, but for me, it was the real thing which was the most interesting.  Here’s the stacks of woodblocks in storage, each one numbered for reference.

I actually videoed a couple of demonstrations here, rather than took photographs.  I’ll upload the videos when I have edited them.

Our next stop was the Tianjin Museum, which was one of a group of buildings set around this modern square, with a large, central pond.  I’d say this was more serene and peaceful and a lot less bleak than the photograph suggests, though that could have been as a result of the piped music which was playing over the loudspeakers.  It was nearly closing time at the museum, though, so it was a quick whip around.

For me, the star exhibit was this wonderful panel.  Sadly, I had no time to find out anything about it, but rest assured, I will.  Running the whole length of the wall and measuring about twelve or fifteen inches in height, the detail was immense.  These tiny figures were no more than an inch high and the whole panel told a story, of course.  Amazing.

There was also a fine example of another traditional art that we’d been advised to look out for – a snuff bottle with a painted image inside the bottle.  This one was particularly exquisite.

We had one more scheduled stop to make – at a shopping street in the cultural centre, but we encountered one all too familiar snafu just down the road.  School pick up time.  Here we were now in the former British enclave (can’t you tell b the buildings?) and every mummy in the city was driving to pick up her little darling and wanted to park as close as possible.  Chaos.  Getting a bus through here took forever.

In half an  hour, we’d barely moved and it was already gone five o’clock. Bearing in mind it was going to take us more than an hour and a half to get back to the ship, that we had packing to do in order to have our suitcases outside our suite by ten this evening, and most important of all, we were looking forward to one last dinner together, we all took a decision to forego the last stop of the day and came right back to the ship.

It was well gone 7pm when we got home and bundled into the dining room for one last dinner with our favourite people.  We laughed and enjoyed each others company and were truly demob happy.

We’ve now completed the packing, have just our hand luggage for our transit into Beijing early tomorrow morning and will say a few more goodbyes then.  For now, though, it’s the last goodnight from Voyager for a while.

What fun we have had!