Tuesday 30 October – One of the difficulties you face in China is ‘The Great Fire Wall of China’. The Great Firewall blocks foreign websites, apps, social media, emails, instant messages and other online resources deemed inappropriate or offensive by the Chinese authorities. So you can’t get on google, Facebook, WhatsApp, Yahoo, AOL etc.

To get round this you download a VPN (Virtual Private Network) and use this to connect you to the internet.  But the Chinese authorities know this so they try to block the VPNs and yesterday they managed to block the VPN we were using.  But today our VPN is back in business having re-routed their traffic in a different way. So apologies for no update yesterday.

Sunday 28 October – The ride on the Maglev train from downtown Shanghai to the airport was amazing. It takes 7 minutes to get to the airport on the Maglev to go by car takes 45 minutes!!  The windows are designed in such a way that when you look out of them you don’t realise how fast your are travelling.  If you did it would make some people feel sick.

Our Tour Guide Miranda accompanied us to the airport so check in was nice an easy.  Our luggage was overweight so we had to pay a 230 RNB fee about £23.  We were then called back because Scott’s case had a large fly spray aerosol can in it which they confiscated.

The flight left 20 minutes late but we arrived in Guilin 5 minutes early. The flight was very much like a flight to Spain, with the attendants going round with drinks, a small meal and as we came into land some small polo mints!!

We were picked up at the airport by a driver and driven to Yangshuo which took just under an hour.  What a contrast with Beijing and Shanghai.   Instead of bumper to bumper cars, traffic jams, skyscrapers and row after row of tall apartment blocks, here in Guilin and Yangshuo you see green fields, amazing sculptured Karst hills, nice small hamlets of houses and there is very little traffic on the roads.

We are staying at the Old manor House hotel situated in Xia Tang village which is about 10 minutes by car from Yangshuo. Thirteen extended families live in the village all with the surname Wang.

The Manor House was built in 1400 in the Ming Dynasty. After the communist took over China in 1949 the house was given to the villagers.  In the 1990s they moved out into new houses which had been built in the village and the Manor House fell into disrepair.

In 2014 a visitor from Germany negotiated to rent the Manor House from the villagers and he renovated it to its past glory using traditional materials and building methods.  All the rooms are decorated in traditional Chinese style with hand made wooden furnishings and decorated with an array of antiques and pieces of local artwork. Its now a boutique hotel in a Ming dynasty building. Absolutely gorgeous.

Sunday  28 October – Today we leave Shanghai and fly 800 miles south to Guilin.

We have a driver who is picking up our luggage and taking it to the airport.  We are travelling to the airport on the Maglev Train.  This does not run on rails it hovers above them – magnetic levitation.  It travels at 267 mph which beats our 125 inter city trains.

Britain actually ran the world’s first Maglev train to carry passengers the Birmingham airport Air Link shuttle that ran from 1984-95. It was popular and cheap to run, but unreliable and expensive to maintain as the one-off components were hard to find.

We are flying to Guilin with China Southern Airlines.  The flight takes three hours.  Chinese commercial flight have one of the worst records for leaving late or not arriving on time. Part of the the problem is that the military control the skies and they have priority over commercial traffic.

Saturday 27 October – Our last day in Shanghai and we have a new tour guide Zoe from Miki tours. We had a busy but very interesting day visiting:

Old Shanghai – First stop was to walk round Old Shanghai, which is full of magnificent historical buildings many going back many hundreds of years.  It was very crowded with tourists, mostly Chinese but we did see a few more westerners than we had seen before.

Yuyuan Gardens – This is a magnificent large house and gardens built in the Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644). In China every part of a house or garden has a meaning, nothing is built just because it looks nice.  So it was interesting listening to Zoe explain the meaning of the various features and why they were built in a particular way. One interesting fact is that large stones were a sign of status.  The rich would pay out lots of money to have an elaborate rockery designed and built and even more for a large individual and naturally sculptured stone to put in their gardens.

Lunch – For lunch we went to a famous but very basic and small noodle restaurant.  The tables were crammed in with hardly any room between them.  People were waiting for tables to come free but rather than wait outside they pick the table who they think are going to finish first and then they stand by the table waiting for that person to finish.  Scott being Scott he walked out through the kitchen and found an old kitchen top in a narrow alley at the back of the restaurant which had a few old rickety stools round it and that is where we had our lunch.  The food was great, we had dry noodles in a gorgeous peanut sauce, small pieces of pork in a nice sauce and a pork chop.

Bird, Fish, Insect Market – This is an old style market packed into a small area full of stalls selling all sorts of animals.  The most popular were crickets of every size from very small to very large.  People buy them to put into fighting pots and then bet on the outcome. But there were also turtles, kittens, birds, rabbits, newts, every sort of animal you could think of.

Peoples Park and Marriage Market – The main reason for going to the park was to see the marriage market.  Elderly parents come to the park every Saturday and Sunday and sit there all day trying to find a partner for their son or daughter.  I expected to find a few people but there were loads of them.  They all had umbrellas and on the top of the open umbrella is a description of their son or daughter and what they are looking for. Our guide Zoe said her cousin met her husband in this way but it had taken her mother 5 years going to the park every weekend before she found her daughter the match!!

Tomorrow we fly to Guilin so tonight we are packing.

Saturday 27 October – Another sunny day in Shanghai.  We have been very lucky with the weather so far on this trip.

We were expecting Autumn type weather in Beijing, but during the day it was sunny and quite warm with temperatures in the low 60s, although it did get cold in the evening and overnight.

Its been very sunny and warm in Shanghai with temperatures ranging from upper 60s to mid 70s.  Surprisingly it has not been that humid which was something we were expecting. And as yet no rain, long may that continue.

Smog is a real issue in China and it has been a constant in both Beijing and Shanghai.  We have not had a really bad day but rarely can you see into the distance.  We did bring face masks but have not as yet had to wear them.  Pity as Sue has a pretty masks with Panda’s on!!

WeChat Pay – In China you rarely see people paying for things in cash or with a credit or debit card.  They pay using WeChat pay.

WeChat is China’s equivalent to Facebook.  It is a multi-purpose messaging, social media app with over 1 billion monthly active users.

A feature on WeChat is WeChat pay.  Every shop ranging from the largest Department Stores to the smallest little shop in some back street or rural hamlet has QR Code (a matrix barcode) reader linked to the till on their counter. To pay all the customer does is point their phone camera at the code and that’s it, the money is charged to the customers bank account or credit card.  Its like using a contactless bank card but its on your phone.

Its that wide spread in China that even beggars have QR card readers round their necks, so you can give them money using your phone!!

Friday 26 October – This morning we went for a walk along The Bund  a mile-long waterfront area on the west side of the Huangpu River in central Shanghai.

The Bund is famous for the 52 historical buildings lining its promenade, most built at the beginning of the 1900s by the British and French,.  These once housed numerous banks and trading houses from the UK, France, the USA, Italy, Russia, Germany, Japan , the Netherlands and Belgium as well as the consulates of Russia and Britain.

Today they owned by the goverment and are rented out to various hotel groups, banks and restaurants.

On the East side of the Huangpu River is the business area of Shanghai with all its new skyscrapers, which all light up in the evening.

For lunch we went to the Muslim Market which was packed with long queues at every food stall.  We had Yang rou chuan – lamb skewers seasoned with cumin and paprika which were lovely and a deep fried chicken, cooked in a massive cauldron of boiling oil, which was not so good and very unhealthy.

In the afternoon we visited Laochangfang – a four story art deco concrete building which was built in 1933 by the British to house the municipal slaughter house. Its the only building of its kind left in the world today.  A great building to take photos in.

Its now been turned into a place for coffee houses, up and coming young businesses and other trendy outlets.

This evening we went back to the Bund for a very expensive but very enjoyable meal at M on the Bund.  they have a great terrace which is ideal for taking photos of the Bund and the lit up skyscrapers of the East side of the river.

Friday 26 October- You would expect that in a communist country like China that everything would be controlled and disciplined.  But while at a political level I am sure it is, in many other areas it is not.

Take cars on the roads.  Like in America cars constantly weave in and out of traffic lanes and pass each on both sides in a never ending high speed dance.

Where the anarchy comes in, is at junctions or when people are turning, cars just go everywhere, each car driver playing chicken with others crossing their path.

Throw into the mix, scooters, cyclists and various other modes of transport many of which look like they have come out of the arc and what you have is a frightening dance of cars and other vehicles none of which want to give way.  , Drivers are constantly sounding their horns and shouting at each other to get out of the way because they are coming through.  As a pedestrian every time you cross the road you take your life into your hands.

Cars at least obey traffic lights but scooters and cyclists don’t.  So you can be stood at a crossing, the lights at red for oncoming traffic, the green man showing that you can cross but pedestrians still don’t have the right of way.  You still have to dodge the scooters and cyclists who come straight through the red lights totally ignoring them.

Even more frightening some scooters and cyclists travel up the cycle lanes in the wrong direction and no one seems to care, get annoyed or be worried.

As a pedestrian you are not even safe on the pavement.  Scooters, cyclists and other ancient modes of transport all use the pavements to get around.  So you can be walking along and suddenly a scooter will shoot past you, often sounding their horn to tell you to get out of the way because they are coming through.  At night it goes even more frightening because very few scooter drivers and no cyclists put their lights on, even when it is very dark.

Thursday 25 October – We are running out of clean clothes so the first thing on the agenda this morning was a trip to the laundry with two bags of dirty clothes.  We had been told that they would wash, dry and iron them but it turned out they did not do ironing.  Cost for washing and drying was 103 CNY = £11.50

Then we were off to Tongli Water Town, which is 60 miles from Shanghai.  Tongli Water Town is an historic town built in the Song dynasty (960 – 1279).  It is surrounded by 5 lakes and crisscrossed by river lanes and 49 bridges the majority which are a century or more old. It has been given the name Venice of the East.

On our way we stopped at Dianshan Lake , a small hamlet by the lake for lunch.  When we stopped the car we were surrounded by a number of ladies all trying to sell us hairy crabs which are a local delicacy.  For lunch we went to a local, basic restaurant, housed in a ‘concrete’ boat on the lake.

The fish, frogs and crabs we could have chosen for lunch were swimming about in large tanks in the entrance.  We tried the hairy crab but it was not to our liking.  But we also ordered goose meat cooked in a lovely sauce, rice and a local vegetable called Jiaobai which did not have much taste but again was cooked in a lovely rich sauce.  The cost for a meal for 5, was 305 CNY = £34.

Tongli Water is a town which has been turned into a tourist spot by the government.  This has brought jobs and prosperity to local villagers encouraging them to stay and not move into the big towns.

Its a gorgeous small town, full of narrow lanes, well preserved ancient small houses, gardens and temples.  It has a number of small river lanes that crisscross the town. We took a trip in a boat hand powered by a lady who stood at the back of the boat deftly using a long wooden oar.

It was not overrun by visitors and those that their were, were Chinese.  We only saw a couple of other westerners in the three hours we spent there.  Chinese like taking pictures of Westerners and our Scott keeps getting stopped by people asking for a photo with him. In contrast Sue & I have only been stopped once!!

Our Tour Guide bought us all Mao hats with a Red Star on the front and Susan bought a hand painted fan.  The old man selling them was painting them on a little table in his shop.  On the back of the fan Sue bought he wrote Susan in English and Chinese dated it and then put his stamp on it.

One negative about travelling out of big Chinese cities is the traffic.  It was not too bad going out but coming back it was horrendous it took us 3 hours to get back to collect our washing, which was really nicely done and folded and get back to our apartment for a well earned rest.

Wednesday 24 October – In the morning we had a very enjoyable bike tour round Shanghai.  The highlight of which was going to a park where lots of retired people were dancing, doing light exercise, playing open air badminton, writing slogans on the ground with large brushes and water and standing round talking and debating with each other.  Most were dressed in everyday clothes but a few were dressed up as if they were going out dancing for the evening in their best gear, one guy had a white suit on.  Sue had a dance with one of the men but I just watched!!

We also toured round the very narrow interconnected passageways of old Shanghai.  The low rise houses are in a very poor condition, they have few if any facilities.  Looking inside they are very small and cramped, it makes you wonder how anyone lives there.  They are not connected to the water or sewerage system, so residents still use chamber pots, or the public toilets and communal bath houses. They have nowhere to dry their washing so they hang it across the narrow passageways.  But despite all this the area is a hive of activity.

In the afternoon we went to the Jewish Ghetto.  In the late 1930s China was the only country that accepted large numbers of Jewish immigrants fleeing Nazi persecution.  Most other countries expressed their sympathy for the Jews but did not allow them into their country.  Most of those who travelled to China, around 25,000 settled in Shanghai were they lived in terrible conditions in the Jewish Ghetto.

Tuesday 23 October – Today we travelled by Bullet Train from Beijing to Shanghai, a distance of 819 miles.  The Bullet Train travels at 217 mph but you get no feeling of going that fast and it is very smooth ride. There is a limited stop train that only takes 4 hours 28 minutes but we could not get seats on this so went on the train that stops in more places and this took 5 hours 40 minutes.

On Chinese trains you can travel 2nd class, first class or business Class.  We splashed out on three Business Class Seats.  This is like being in first class on an aeroplane.  Very large posh seats that go down into totally flat beds, they even provide a blanket if you want one and there is loads of room as there are only 16 seats in a carriage.

Amazingly there was a cleaner on the train and she spent the whole journey walking up and down, emptying bins, cleaning sinks and toilets, even mopping the floor between carriages!!

On arrival in Shanghai we were taken to our Airbnb Apartment.  This is on the 18th floor of a high rise block of  apartments with great views over the centre of Shanghai.  Its a lot larger and better accommodation than what we had in Beijing.

Across the road is a large shopping mall in which there is a Tesco Supermarket but it is now called Vangaurd as Texco pulled out of China, but locals still call it Tesco. One of the more interesting aspects of shopping in a Chinese supermarket is going to the fish counter and seeing live fish of various sorts, crabs and frogs swimming around in large tanks waiting to be sold to customers!!