Life's a Stitch

Chapter 5 - China in Pictures and Adjectives

Perplexing

So, why are there gas masks in hotel room closets? Someone in the group guessed their use was  for pollution. It’s smoggy, but not gas mask worthy. I thought maybe for protection in case of attack. You never know with the state of the world and China’s proximity to threatening regimes. The real answer? They are there to protect you in case of fire. 

Scary

Fire fighting methods on a river boat. It’s a good thing they furnish gas masks, better yet that the shore appeared to be within reasonable swimming distance.

Charming

Air China’s safety video features a friendly panda and upon landing, the flight attendants stand at the front of the cabin to thank passengers with a respectful bow. Nice touch.

Endearing

The giant pandas at the Chungqing Zoo’s panda research and conservation program. Just our group of 32 and the pandas made for a memorable experience.

Industrious

The Forbidden City was built, start to finish, in only 14 years. That’s 980 buildings covering 180 acres, built by over a million workers in the early 1400’s.

The Three Gorges damn, the world’s largest power plant in terms of output, required the systematic relocation of 1.25 million people. An entire city was built to house many of them.

Guess  that’s what happens in the absence of an elected government.

China’s entire super highway system has been built since 2000, 132,000 kilometres (nearly 80,000 miles) worth.

And what about that Great Wall? A military fortification, 21,000 kilometers (13,000 miles) long.

More to come...

Making time fly by - China Chapter 4

What to do when faced with 27 hours of flying, a six hour train ride and four days on a river boat, all in a two week period? You need to know that I’m not a big travel sleeper nor watcher of TV or movies (especially Air China’s selections this trip), so those don’t appear on my to do list. This trip I packed a book, knitting, and my well travelled art supplies. These were completed....

On a train:

A boat:

And a plane:

 

 

China - Chapter 3 the food, continued

Most meals, other than breakfast, were not included in our tour, but the two most memorable lunches were. 

The first was in a family’s courtyard house in a Hutong in Beijing’s old town. A Hutong is a maze of attached one level houses and courtyards, built hundreds of years ago. We squeezed into a living room/dining room wallpapered with family photos and were treated to a typical homecooked meal served family style. It started, oddly enough, with a bowl of Bugles (chips) and a kind of sweet pretzel, followed by chicken in garlic shoots, stir fried celery, chicken in onions, homemade pork and carrot dumplings, potatoes in soy sauce, pakora like veggie balls, and carrots and garlic, all delicious.

Afterwards the mother of the house taught us to make dumplings and the father sang. 

We always turned our noses up at organized tours, but this was done really well, and this experience was one we wouldn’t have found on our own. The sad end to the story is that the area is under consideration to become a Unesco World Heritage Site. If it doesn’t achieve that status it will be torn down to make way for modern towers. The residents lose either way. When areas become heritage sites  the people often can’t afford to bring their homes up to the standards required and are forced to leave.

The other memorable lunch was a hotpot experience in Chongqing  (pronounced Chong Ching).

Before:

After:

If you plan to visit China, it’s worth noting that beer, often very light beer, is the drink you’ll be served at meals, or you can have full sugared Coke or tea. No wine was available by the glass, except on the ship ($9), and a bottle was expensive. We bought several bottles of wine at convenience or grocery stores. Australian or Chilean wine, typically low priced in North America, cost about $20CDN. Great Wall Chinese wine came in a few different grades. The $10 one was ok, but light, with the exception of one bad bottle, which we determined was probably poorly stored.

Another favourite meal was when we had the opportunity to stop in one of Shanghai’s downstairs food courts. 

#1 Chicken feet, though not as appetizing to me as the ones my son made for my birthday last year, which were boiled, baked and deep fried to salty crispy nothingness.

Julie, our reluctant tourmate:

One blustery night I craved a bowl of laksa. When I saw the sign I knew I had found my soup. “The pork in Canada is Laksa.”