Archive for February, 2018


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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China for the New Year (1): introduction

February 9th, 2018 by Roger Darlington

Top of my bucket list is the wish – so long as I have reasonable health and adequate wealth – to have visited as many countries as my age. I am currently 69 and I have visited 71 countries. Outside of Europe and the United States, it is unusual for me to visit a country […]

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A review of the new film “The Commuter”

February 8th, 2018 by Roger Darlington

“The Commuter” – a teasingly down-beat title for an action thriller – has the same director (Spanish Jaume Collet-Serra) and the same star (Irish Liam Neeson) as the earlier “Non-Stop” and indeed has essentially the same plot: a troubled hero with law enforcement skills trying to identify a key passenger on a tubular form of […]

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