Its Wednesday 30th May as I write this post and at long last I have managed to download and catalogue the 1400 photos that I took during my amazing journey through China and I can now make a start in writing up this blog. The delay hasn’t been entirely due to photos – I returned to find that the wild life reserve (My garden) needed some urgent attention if I was to continue to get down my drive!
The journey to China got off to an excellent start from the time that I arrived at London Heathrow to board my Virgin Atlantic flight to Shanghai. Being still somewhat of a novice to long haul flying I was relieved to be approached by a friendly Virgin Atlantic representative who assisted me in ‘Checking In’ and finding an aisle seat. Within a further 15 minutes I was clear of security and had time for a coffee and sandwich before boarding a very smart and clean Airbus 346. I arrived at my seat to be greeted by a young Chinese man who turned out to be one of China’s leading chemical engineers who was on his way to deliver a paper at a scientific conference in Shanghai over the coming weekend.
During our 10-hour flight my young Chinese friend told me that he was completing a Doctorate at Oxford University. He had developed a polymer that when added to tarmac makes it easier to lay and increases its range of uses. Having already published papers in ‘Nature’ and ‘New Scientist’ he clearly is destined to become a top scientist in China. He was the son of a farmer from close to the Inner Mongolian border and his rise from these humble beginnings was my first introduction to the developments in education and many other aspects of China that have taken place over the last two decades. He also wrote out and rehearsed me in some useful Chinese phrases! His friendly approach was typical of what I was to find in China.
The aircraft was carrying a larger than usual cargo payload and many of the seats in economy were empty so it proved to be a very pleasant with plenty of space to stretch out and get some sleep since of course we were chasing the sun as China is +7hrs BST I arrived on Tuesday 2nd May at 9.15am having departed LHR at 3.15pm the previous day. I still find this ‘time travel’ intriguing.
The arrival at Shanghai Pudong airport proved to be as easy as the flight and after 30 minutes I had cleared immigration, collected my baggage and found the Viking Cruise rep in the arrivals haul. There were two other couples on the flight – I had thought there would be many more but as I was to discover the majority of the 238 guests on this Viking River Cruise were to be from the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. I thought Viking was a British company but its Swiss.
We were soon aboard a mini-bus on our 40-mile trip into Shanghai along a busy highway and enjoying my first experience of Chinese driving! Pretty aggressive with plenty of use of horns but unlike Buenos Aries where horns are used mainly throughimpatience in China horns are more of warning that ‘you are coming through’ or ‘already in your blind mirror spot’!
The final mile or so into the centre of downtown Shanghai and the Ritz-Carlton Hotel was truly breath-taking surrounded by modern andarchitecturally interesting high rise buildings of steel and glass construction surrounding older and renovated traditional temples like the one shown in the picture but for the present
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