But right means generally to be correct, but the word itself can be used, like many others in a variety of ways
Such as, do we have any rights any more, since the government is slowly shutting down our freedoms, and, you guessed it, allegedly taking away our rights.
What about a right angle, we know this as being an angle of 90 degrees
How about I right a wrong, returning a bad situation to a good one?
Are you left-handed or right-handed?
Are you one of those people who can’t tell their left from their right?
And who was it that decided what was your left or your right, ever thought about that? I didn’t until just now. Good luck finding an answer on Google.
And how many times have you wished you were in the right place at the right time???
Then, of course, if English is a second language, how about confusing right with write.
Means something quite different, doesn’t it?
How about rite? Yes, I guess if we were in the habit of chopping chicken heads off and dancing around a fire, that might be its meaning,
China is renowned for its exquisite silk, so naturally, a visit to the Silk Spinning Factory is part of today’s tour.
After that, we will be heading downtown to an unspecified location where we’re getting a boat ride, walk through a typical Chinese shopping experience, and coffee at a coffee shop that is doubling as the meeting place, after we soak up the local atmosphere.
The problem with that is that if the entire collective trip a deal tourists take this route then the savvy shopkeepers will jack up their prices tenfold because we’re tourists with money. It’ll be interesting to see how expensive everything is.
So…
Before we reach the silk factory, we are told that Suzhou is the main silk area of China, and we will be visiting a nearly 100 years old, Suzhou No 1 Silk Mill, established in 1926. Suzhou has a 4,700-year history of making silk products. It is located at No. 94, Nanmen Road, Suzhou, Jiangsu, China.
Then we arrive at the Silk Factory, another government-owned establishment with a castiron guarantee of quality and satisfaction.
The look and feel of the doona cover certainly backs up that claim
And the colors and variety is amazing (as is the cost of those exquisite sets)
We get to see the silk cocoon stretched beyond imagination, and see how the silk thread is extracted, then off to the showroom for the sales pitch.
It isn’t a hard sell, and the sheets, doonas, pillows, and pillowcases, are reasonably priced, and come with their own suitcase (for free) so you can take them with you, or free shipping, by slow boat, if you prefer not to take the goods with you.
We opt for the second choice, as there’s no room left in our baggage after packing the Chinese Medicine.
The Henan Museum is one of the oldest museums in China. In June 1927, General Feng Yuxiang proposed that a museum be built, and it was completed the next year. n 1961, along with the move of the provincial capital, Henan Museum moved from Kaifeng to Zhengzhou.
It currently holds about 130,000 individual pieces, more of which are mostly cultural relics, bronze vessels of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, and pottery and porcelain wares of the various dynasties.
Eventually, we arrive at the museum and get off the bus adjacent to a scooter track and despite the efforts of the guide, there’s no stopping them from nearly running us over.
We arrive to find the museum has been moved to a different and somewhat smaller building nearby as the existing, and rather distinctively designed, building is being renovated.
While we are waiting for the tickets to enter, we are given another view of industrial life in that there is nothing that resembles proper health and safety on worksites in this country, and the workers are basically standing on what looks to be a flimsy bamboo ladder with nothing to stop them from falling off.
The museum itself has exhibits dating back a few thousand years and consist of bronze and ceramic items. One of the highlights was a tortoiseshell with reportedly the oldest know writing ever found.
Other than that it was a series of cooking utensils, a table, and ceramic pots, some in very good condition considering their age.
The Longjing Pearl Factory is located at: No.2 Zuoan Gate Inner Street, ChongWen District, Beijing 100061 China.
This Pearl Center specializes in both freshwater and seawater pearls, with a reputation backed by the government of China, with a big selection and of the highest quality. There were all kinds of jewelry made of pearls in different colors, shapes, and sizes.
They also had, as an interesting sideline, famous Chinese traditional cosmetics such as pearl cream and pearl powder, reputed to make your skin smoother, tendered and most importantly, younger.
We were advised of all of this well before we arrived at the factory, and of course, one suspected the glowing review, with emphasis on the fact it was a government operation and therefore trustworthy, suggested we should buy, meant the tour guide would receive a commission on each sale.
This is nothing new, it’s the same the world over, so it’s up to the visitor to buy or not to buy.
As soon as you get in the door you are taken to the group’s guide for the tour (and afterward, available for help on making purchases). who gives you a rundown on the different types and colors of pearls. This briefly is,
Pearls come in two main categories: freshwater cultured pearls and saltwater cultured pearls. Various types of pearls are the result of the environment in which they live, and different cultivation techniques used by the pearl farmers.
Freshwater cultured pearls are grown in lakes and rivers, whereas saltwater cultured pearls are grown in bodies of saltwater such as bays. The most commonly used pearls are Freshwater pearls.
Freshwater Pearls come in various pastel shades of white, pink, peach, lavender, plum, purple, and tangerine. South Sea cultured pearls come in shades of lustrous white, often with silver or rose overtones.
Black pearls are known as Tahitian pearls and come most often in shades of black and gray. While a Tahitian pearl has a black body color, it will vary in its overtones, which most often will be green or pink.
Then there’s a demonstration, where one of the tour group is selected to pick an oyster out of the tank, and then there’s the guessing game as to how many pearls are in the shell, with the winner getting a pearl.
Guesses ranged from 1 to 23 and the answer was 26. Nearest wins, and one for the person who picked the oyster out of the tank. After this demonstration, we move on to the ways we can tell the difference between real and fake pearls.
It seems strange that they would, but we were guaranteed by both the tour guide and the lady delivering the lecture that the pearls we were about to buy were real, so how could we suspect there was anything dodgy about them? Besides, now we could tell real from fake!
We then move onto the showroom floor where there are casements of pearl products, in the form of necklaces, earrings, and any number of variations and uses. And, just to let you know, the prices are very, very expensive, even if they say they have a special.
Perhaps the best products, and those that found favor with many of the women on the tour, was the pearl cremes and powders. These were not expensive, and, as we discovered later, actually worked as described.
Instead of making a grand entrance, arriving in style and being greeted by important dignitaries, we are slinking in via an airplane, late at night.
It’s hardly the entrance I’d envisaged. At 9:56 the plane touches down on the runway. Outside the plane, it is dark and gloomy and from what I could see, it had been raining. That could, of course, simply be condensation.
Once on the ground, everyone was frantically gathering together everything from seat pockets and sending pillows and blankets to the floor. A few were turning their mobile phones back on, and checking for a signal, and, perhaps, looking for messages sent to them during the last 12 hours. Or perhaps they were just suffering from mobile phone deprivation.
It took 10 minutes for the plane to arrive at the gate.
That’s when everyone moves into overdrive, unbuckling belts, some before the seatbelt sign goes off, and are first out of their seats and into the overhead lockers. Most are not taking care that their luggage may have moved, but fortunately, no bags fall out onto someone’s head.
The flight had been relatively turbulent free.
When as many people and bags have squeezed into that impossibly small aisle space, we wait for the door to open, and then the privileged few business and first-class passengers to depart before we can begin to leave.
As we are somewhere near the middle of the plane, our wait will not be as long as it usually is. This time we avoided being at the back of the plane. Perhaps that privilege awaits us on the return trip.
Once off the plane, it is a matter of following the signs, some of which are not as clear as they could be. It’s why it took another 30 odd minutes to get through immigration, but that was not necessarily without a few hiccups along the way. We got sidetracked at the fingerprint machines, which seemed to have a problem if your fingers were not straight, not in the center of the glass, and then if it was generally cranky, which ours were, continue to tell you to try again, and again, and again, and again…That took 10 to 15 minutes before we joined an incredibly long queue of other arrivals,
A glance at the time, and suddenly it’s nearly an hour from the moment we left the plane.
And…
That’s when we got to the immigration officer, and it became apparent we were going to have to do the fingerprints yet again. Fortunately this time, it didn’t take as long. Once that done, we collected our bags, cleared customs by putting our bags through a huge x-ray machine, and it was off to find our tour guide.
We found several tour guides with their trip-a-deal flags waiting for us to come out of the arrivals hall. It wasn’t a difficult process in the end. We were in the blue group. Other people we had met on the plane were in the red group or the yellow group. The tour guide found, or as it turned out she found us, it was simply a matter of waiting for the rest of the group, of which there were eventually 28.Gathered together we were told we would be taking the bags to one place and then ourselves to the bus in another. A glance in the direction of the bus park, there were a lot of busses.
Here’s a thought, imagine being told your bus is the white one with blue writing on the side.
Yes, yours is, and 25 others because all of the tourist coaches are the same. An early reminder, so that you do not get lost, or, God forbid, get on the wrong bus, for the three days in Beijing, is to get the last five numbers of the bus registration plate and commit them to memory. It’s important. Failing that, the guide’s name is in the front passenger window.
Also, don’t be alarmed if your baggage goes in one direction, and you go in another. In a rather peculiar set up the bags are taken to the hotel by what the guide called the baggage porter. It is an opportunity to see how baggage handlers treat your luggage; much better than the airlines it appears.
That said, if you’re staying at the Beijing Friendship Hotel, be prepared for a long drive from the airport. It took us nearly an hour, and bear in mind that it was very late on a Sunday night. Climbing out of the bus after what seemed a convoluted drive through a park with buildings, we arrive at the building that will be our hotel for the next three days. From the outside, it looks quite good, and once inside the foyer, that first impression is good. Lots of space, marble, and glass. If you are not already exhausted by the time you arrive, the next task is to get your room key, find your bags, get to your room, and try to get to be ready the next morning at a reasonable hour.
Sorry, that boat has sailed. We were lucky, we were told, that our plane arrived on time, and we still arrived at the hotel at 12:52. Imagine if the incoming plane is late.
This was taken the following morning. It didn’t look half as bland late at night.
This is the back entrance to Building No 4 but is quite representative of the whole foyer, made completely of marble and glass. It all looked very impressive under the artificial lights, but not so much in the cold hard light of early morning.
This the foyer of the floor our room was on. Marble with interesting carpet designs. Those first impressions of it being a plush hotel were slowly dissipating as we got nearer and nearer to the room. From the elevator, it was a long, long walk.
So…
Did I tell you about the bathroom in our room? The shower and the toilet both share the same space with no divide and the shower curtain doesn’t reach to the floor. Water pressure is phenomenal. Having a shower floods the whole shower plus toilet area so when you go to the toilet you’re basically underwater. Don’t leave your book or magazine on the floor or it will end up a watery mess. And the water pressure is so hard that it could cut you in half. Only a small turn of the tap is required to get that tingling sensation going. It’s after 1:30 before we finally get to sleep.
As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some months ago.
Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.
For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits I will run the series again from Episode 1
These are the memories of our time together…
This is Chester. He’s being somewhat difficult.
I’m trying to discuss the nuances of a Mexican standoff, a concept I’m sure he is fully aware of.
Except…
He keeps telling me that he’s part Siamese, so how the hell could he be in the middle of a Mexican standoff.
He then says, in a tone that drips sarcasm, I’m not Mexican either, but part British, so would it not be more appropriate to call it a British-Sino standoff?
Wow!
I’m doubting he knows what a standoff is anyway.
And since this encounter started he’s avoided looking me in the eye, except for one condescending as, when I first arrived, as if to say I was interrupting his morning siesta.
I’m wondering if it’s not time to get another cat and update our mouse catching equipment.
Oh, yes, now I’ve got his attention.
New cat, what’s this about a new car?
Have I found his Achilles heel?
We’ll find out next time when I pull the new cat routine on him
Located at the bottom of Lake Taupo, in New Zealand, staying here would make more sense if you were here for the fishing, and, well, the skiing or the hiking, or just a relaxing half hour in the thermal pools.
I saw a sign somewhere that said that Taurangi was New Zealand’s premier fishing spot. I might have got the wrong, but it seems to me they’re right. On the other side of town, heading towards Taupo, there’s a lodge that puts up fly fishermen, and where you can see a number of them in an adjacent river trying their luck.
It’s what I would be doing if I had the patience.
But Taurangi is a rather central place to stay, located at the southernmost point of the lake. From there it is not far from the snowfields of Whakapapa and Turoa. Equally, at different times of the year, those ski fields become walking or hiking tracks, and the opportunity to look into a dormant volcano, Ruapehu.
It is basically surrounded by hills and mountains on three sides and a lake on the other. Most mornings, and certainly everyone is different, there is a remarkable sunrise, particularly from where we were staying on the lake, where it could be cloudy, clear, or just cold and refreshing, with a kaleidoscope of colors from the rising sun.
I don’t think I’ve been there to see two days the same.
However, Taurangi, on most days we’ve visited, is even more desolate than Taupo, both on the main street and the central mall. The same couldn’t be said for the precinct where New World, the local supermarket, a Z petrol station can be found. There it is somewhat more lively. The fact there’s a few more shops and a restaurant might help traffic flow.
There is also a mini golf course, and in the middle of winter, it is a bleak place to be, especially in the threatening rain, and the wind. It had also seen better days and in parts, in need of a spruce up, but it’s winter, and there are no crowds, so I guess it will wait till the Spring.
In the mall, there’s the expected bank, newsagent, gift shop and post office combined, and a number of other gift shops/galleries. But the best place is the café which I’ve never seen empty and has an extended range of pies pastries and cakes, along with the fast food staples of chips and chicken. Oh, and you can also get a decent cup of coffee there.
There are two other coffee shops but we found this one the first time we came, we were given a warm welcome and assistance, and have never thought to go anywhere else, despite two known change of owners.
But despite all these reasons why someone might want to stay there, we don’t.
We have a timeshare, and there’s a timeshare in Pukaki called Oreti Village. That’s where we stay.
The fortification walls, both an inner wall and an outer wall, surrounding Beijing city were built from the early 1400s to 1553.
The dimensions of the Inner city wall are: Length: 24 kilometers or 15 miles Height: 25 meters or 49 feet high Thickness, at ground level: 20 meters or 66 feet at the top: 12 meters or 29 feet
It had nine gates. The fortifications included gate towers, archways, watchtowers, barbicans, barbican towers, sluice gates, sluice gate towers, enemy sighting towers, corner guard towers, and a moat system.
The outer city wall had a length of 28 kilometers or 17 miles.
From 1911, after the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, the dismantling of the fortifications began.
In 1965, major deconstruction of the fortifications was commenced to allow for the construction of the 2nd wrong road, and Line 2 or the Beijing underground railway.
In 1979, the government called off the demolition of the remaining city walls and named them cultural heritage sites. By this time, the only intact sections were the gate tower and watchtower at Zhengyangmen, the watchtower at Deshengmen, the guard tower at the southeast corner, the northern moats of the Inner city, the section of the Inner city wall south of the Beijing railway station, and a small section of Inner-city wall near Xibianmen.
As for our guide’s explanation of the fortifications: Leaving the Square to go to the Golden Mask Dynasty Show, we pass remnants of the wall that used to surround Beijing.
This wall was built in the early 15th century and was about 24 km long, up to 15 meters high and about 20 meters thick, and had nine gates, one of which still exists today. In 1965 most of it was removed so that the second ring road and an underground railway line could be built.
One the first things you notice when driving around Beijing, other than the roads are congested with traffic, is the number of trees and flowers that have been planted, in the median strip as well as along the edges of the road.
What you also notice is the large number of multi-story apartment blocks, which are needed to house the millions of Beijing residents. What we have, so far, rarely seen, is single-story houses. These continuous areas of trees and rose bushes are, every now and then, broken up by very colorful garden beds:
Nearer to the square we are able to get up close to the flowers. These, we are told, are a variation on the rose, one that flowers for nine months of the year.
They come in a variety of colors.
And they are literally everywhere you go, on the side of the roadway, often blotting out the concrete jungle behind them.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 