Dot and Stew's China Adventure

[SBWHART]

We've just got back from a three week holiday in China,

It was a bit of an eye opener:- the whole country seems to be one huge construction site, they are building 40 story apartment towers a dozen at a time, roads, bridges and high speed railway links are going up all over the place, they are catching up the west fast. Before I get onto the touristy bits her are a city pics so you can see what I mean.

The Great Wall

Teracota Army

This is the General he looks full of authority

Pandas

Enjoying a chew with a mate

A group of three year old enjoying some carrots.

I love how they like to lie on their backs to eat.

We went down the Yangsie river through the Three gorges and saw the Three Gorges Dame and Visited a Gulin and went down the lee river and saw then fish with Cormorants:- I,ll post those pics of in a few days time.

Hope you enjoy

Stew

 

[SBWHART]

Ok Her's a few more

The Yangsie three river cruse

One of the cruse ships

Lots of frate is moved down the river.

We must have past a 20 or 30 ship yards like this.

Another bridge goes up.

When they built the three gorges dam it raised the water level by 175M so they had to move whole towns like these.

Entering one of the gorges it must have been really spectacular before the dam went up.

Hydrofoils quicken the journey.

Model of three Gorges dam the model gives you some idea of the scale of the project.

And the real thing

One of the locks empty

And with six ships in it, Our ship went through at 2 in the morning everyone got up to see it except one person who slept through it, yes I was that person.

A few Chinglish Signs I was amused to find out that the Chines refer to them selves as speaking Chinglish.

Some of the best examples were in the gents urinals :- Aim carefully for better hygiene, and:- A step closer is cleaner.


Stew

 

[Blogwitch]

Can't wait until you pop round and tell us all about it.

John

 

[John Rudd]

You appear to have had a great time

Looks like their economy is booming with all that construction work going on Stew........

Sort of puts us to shame here in Blighty... what with ship yards desolate, steel and chemical industry closed.....
How did we manage to screw up the economy? someone remind again :-\

 

[Blogwitch]

GREED!!!!

 

[SBWHART]

A few more pics this time Guline

Water Bufalo

They still use woman musle power

Wash day

Fishing with Cormorants, they losly tie a bit of string arround their necks so that they cant swollow the biger fish.

We had a demonstration of them doing at night they have a couple of lamps in the bow of the boat to attract the fish.

When the fisherman indicates to them they dive in and start fishing.

The small ones they eat themselves, but when they catch one they can't swollow they jump back on the boat.

The Fisherman gets hold of them.

And shakes the fish out.

Cool

Stew

 

[Tin Falcon]

hmm a pvc pipe raft interesing Idea. where are the pic of the SEIG factory tour. ???
Tin

 

[SBWHART]

My boss wouldn't agree to have the Sieg factory tour in the itinery, the real stumbling block was me wanting to take empty cases to bring back all the goodies.

:big: :big: :big:

Here's a few more pics of the caves at Gulin

One of the things that fascinated me was the transport system, traffic seemed to flow like a stream flowing around a bolder, traffic lights were optional green, amber, red all mean go, their was no lane discipline, and as for the bicycles the majority of which were battery driven they were just like a herd of stampeding cattle that didn't give way for anything.

This pic was taken early in the morning before the traffic really got going you can see the bicycle lane has been stopped by a man with a red flag, they just wont obey the lights, when the traffic really pics up they just overwhelm him and keep going. At the bottom right you can just see a new subway under construction, (not a sandwich shop a mass transport system) :loco:.

This is the fast train we did a journey of about the equivalent of Manchester to London about 2 hrs:- 1st class one way for £12.

It hit a top speed of 200 km/hr, they are building a faster high speed track that will have speed of over 300 km/hr

A goods train

We passed a train loaded with military vehicles I didn't think it wise to take a pic, but what interested me was that each vehicle had a driver sitting in it even though they were loaded on a railway wagon :scratch:

They call these strange things "local Mercedes"

A up dated version.

Most of the bikes and scooter look like Japanese clones.

I've never seen cars transported like this.

Came across this in a museum its how they use to cast bronze pots with a clay pattern and mold.

We flew out their in an Airbus A380 its got three camera one above the cockpit, one on the tail plane and one pointing to the ground, each passenger seat has a TV for watching videos etc, you can also access these cameras and watch the plane taking off and landing etc, I took this pic of the screen as the plane was making a course correction at 40,000ft, you can see the curvature of the earth.

I've tried not to be political with this thread, but one of the most disturbing thing that happened was when it was announced that the Nobel Piece Prize had been awarded to a Chinese dissident, we were watching the BBC world news channel the presenter got as far as saying "The Nobel Piece Prize has been awarded to the Chinese dissident" and the signal was cut off, we swapped over to CNN they did the same thing, and they kept doing it every time it came on.

I think the next pics demonstrate the hypocrisy of the Chines system.

I just wonder what would happen to any one who printed a t shirt taking the piss out of a Chinese leader.

Stew

 

[Deanofid]

Thanks for all the pics, Stew. Especially the T-shirts!

 

[bearcar1]

Some of the best examples were in the gents urinals :- Aim carefully for better hygiene, and:- A step closer is cleaner.


Stew


Man they have that all wrong, those should read "Please don't eat the big white mint" and Pilgrims with short muskets, step up to the firing line" Ya' know, all these years and they still haven't gotten it. ;D

Great pictures Stew, thanks for sharing. It is a very graphic example of how large the Chinese industrial base has become.

BC1
Jim