Archive for the ‘My life & thoughts’ Category
China in the New Year (11): Yichang to Wuhan to Xiamen to Longyan
February 20th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
After five days in Yichang celebrating the Chinese New Year with Hua’s relatives on her mother’s side, the last two days have been largely taken up with travelling. First, we took the train from Yichang back to Wuhan. Here we were joined by six relatives of Hua’s father who had driven over from his home […]
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China in the New Year (10): even more Yichang
February 18th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
PStill in Yichang – the home town of most of the relatives of Hua’s mother – it was a day like a game of football: of two halves – in this case, historic and modern. In the morning, a group of us visited the Yichang Museum which has over 500 artefacts on display out of […]
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China in the New Year (9): still more Yichang
February 17th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
Now that New Year’s Day in China has come and gone, we were able to be tourists again. So today we visited the nearby Xiling Gorge Scenic Area at the eastern end of the Three Gorges which proved to be a very enjoyable location where we spent around three hours but could have taken all […]
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China for the New Year (8): more Yichang and more Zigui
February 16th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
Today was the Chinese New Year and, on our trip to China, it was very much a day of two halves. The morning was spent in Yichang, mainly in the 22nd floor flat of Hua’s relatives, but we did go for a walk to a local hypermarket which seemed to stock absolutely everything including fruits […]
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China for the New Year (7): Yichang and Zigui
February 15th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
I am now half way through my two-week trip to China to coincide with the Chinese New Year and today was New Year’s Eve. The Chinese New Year sees the largest annual mass human migration in the world. China’s Ministry of Transport has estimated that almost three billion individual journeys will be made as part […]
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China for the New Year (6): Yichang
February 14th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
After just one night in Hua’s home city of Wuhan, we travelled by train to the smaller city of Yichang where most of Hua’s mother’s relatives live and where we will celebrate the Chinese New Year. When I made this journey in 2010, the station in Wuhan was old and dark and seething with humanity […]
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China for the New Year (5): Wuhan
February 13th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
On our two-week trip to China, after three nights in the capital Beijing, we flew – a flight of one hour 40 minutes – to Wuhan, the home town of my Chinese ‘daughter’ Hua. Wuhan is one of the largest cities in the world of which you have never heard. It lies at the intersection […]
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China for the New Year (4): more Beijing
February 12th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
Still in Beijing, in total contrast to our first night here – when I was awake with jet lag – I slept well. So well in fact that, when my alarm failed to go off at 7.30 am because the battery in the iPhone ran out, I did not wake up until Joshua banged on […]
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China for the New Year (3): Beijing
February 11th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
On our first full day in Beijing, we visited two major locations in and around the enormously expansive Tiananmen Square. The security in the square is phenomenal: one can only enter through guarded points where Chinese citizens have their identity cards electronically scanned; at a further security point, all bags are x-rayed; and everywhere there are […]
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China for the New Year (2): arrival
February 10th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
My two-week trip to China began with some problematic flights with Air France. Thanks to snow in northern France, our flight from London Heathrow to Paris Clarke de Gaulle was delayed by about three quarters of an hour and we worried if we would make our connecting flight. We did – but only just. Then […]
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