Welcome to my second – and final – piece reflecting on our recent holiday in China, (the first was posted HERE yesterday). Our 19-day adventure included shiny modern cities, smaller towns, rural locations, large retail malls, small local shops – and pretty-much everything in between! We saw the uber-rich, the rich, the poor and the very poor. We people-watched a lot of time whilst travelling by train, mini-bus as well as by foot, and this offered us a great understanding of modern China. Unsurprisingly, my figures DON’T reflect Hong Kong (it felt very different!).
China – By the Numbers!
Best read with your tongue occasionally in your cheek! 😁
0 motorists giving way on the roads (from ANY direction!)
0 locals understanding ‘cold milk in a jug please’
0 awareness of a Westerner’s need for ‘personal space’
0 locals prepared to queue
0 rickshaws seen in action
0 lbs weight-gain (Ann). Only 2 for Steve! – see the last item on this list!
0.25 metres of toilet roll in the whole of mainland China
0.33 bars of soap in total when out-and-about
1 person in a wheelchair
1 canal trip
1 phone/laptop portable charger confiscated (ironically on our final internal flight)
1 beggar
1 Audi e-tron
1 McDonald’s visit
1 lake
1 location where my VPNs didn’t work all day
1 Irish Bar
1 sound-and-light show
2 languages on most major road signs (English & Chinese) in/near the big cities
2 pieces of cheese (they don’t appear to ‘do’ cheese in China!)
2 river trips
2 international flights
2 motorists signalling (surely a mistake!)
2 locals using the toilet cubicle with the door OPEN
3 paper hand-towels (but not in the same place!)
3 Stellas
3 scooter riders of 300 million (official ownership stats!) with their lights on when it was dark
4 different scooter riders (only!) wearing skid-lids
4 glasses of Guinness (£12 a pint!)
4 mozzy bites
4 Brits trying to make sense of it all
5 domestic flights
7 Temples
7 tour guides (Michael, Mona, Nina, Jeremy, John, Stephen and Mark)
8 is THE lucky number of you’re Chinese
8 cities
11 Chinese lunches
11 Teslas
14 teas tasted, ranging from ‘English Breakfast’, ‘Earl Grey’ to ‘Habiscus and Rose’
16 local beers
18 blog-posts
19 pagodas
23 coffees (they were found with the ‘hen’s teeth’)
125 quid for a new electric scooter – and you don’t need a licence to put it on the road
350 km/h – top speed of China’s ‘bullet’ trains (that’s a mighty 217 mph!)
430 km/h – top speed of the Shanghai’s ‘Maglev’ train (270 mph!) – Kettering to St Pancras in 15 minutes!
580 people in the cast of the sound-and-light show
800 metres of silk thread from a single silkworm’s cuckoon
806 Photos
23,247 Chinese flags (OK, we didn’t really count them all, but the Chinese are very patriotic!)
225,616 steps (including 28,102 in Hong Kong) – we DID count these using our phones!
Phew! 😍
My camera-roll (and less of my chat!) HERE
I got into blogging quite late in life, not publishing my first post until 2004 – well into my 40s! My lifelong love of technology and communication (in all its forms), together with a fondness for the art of writing seemed to be the perfect combination to contribute a few words to the online community. But I’m no Samuel Pepys! If you’re looking for deep and meaningful comments on a variety of subjects, then you’ve arrived at the wrong site! I only pen for pleasure! On average, my posts appear about twice per month, covering family & friends, cinema visits, eating out, holiday experiences and techy stuff. Oh, and as this is my hobby, there are no sponsored links nor adverts here – it’s all done with love!
I hope you find it enjoyable, interesting and occasionally, even helpful!
Comments