Tag Archives: Travel

Friday 27th January 2012

Diary, Home 27/01/2012 Comments: 2

Home and more than a little jet lagged…

Great trip though. I do so love LA.

Out and about, Santa Monica Beach. Twenty eight degrees, sandals, shades and short sleeves. Look at that sky. Intense. I do actually think I could live here, especially in one of those clap board beach houses on the road out to Malibu…

Check out the neon fish swimming at lightening speed in a fish tank the size of a sitting room in the centre of a Malibu mall. I ran around in circles trying to snap them.

Also the Metropolis Monolith Seventh Adventist church- scary.

And the pretty one, stained glass bright against the cobalt sky.

And the light…O, the light…

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Great shopping too… Bought loads of fabulous samples for work and managed to find some pretty frocks for me too. And a skull bangle, some new shades, three neon notebooks for my poems, four ‘FUCK’ fridge magnets, a box of ‘pretty polaroid notelets’, a pair of snakeskin ankle boots, a neon yellow cardigan, neon undies, a neon pink bracelet, neon trainer laces, (nEoN is ThE CoLoUr of the SuMmEr oF 2012 GirLyS!) and some silver jeans, of course.

Wonderful evening out on Wednesday at the Mondrian Hotel, Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood. We drank Hollywood Cosmos that were baby pink and divine, ate dim sum, beef dumplings and crispy skewery things, lobster Pad Thai and plantain fried rice in the Asia de Cuba and it was all completely delicious.

It was dark (obviously) when we were there which is why I’ve picked this gorgeous daylight pic for you instead, so you can see the crazy, surreal, oversized plant pots.

So home now. Jet lag. Mmm interesting. I have sea-legs and brain-swim. It feels like just this morning I was shopping on Melrose Avenue in my favourite LA store, Fred Segal, and yet that was Thursday and now it’s Friday evening and my body hasn’t quite caught up. I’m not sure if I’m hungry. I’m not sure if I’m sleepy. I’m not sure if I’m me…

Nice to be home though, blogging in my kitchen, drinking tea with my man. Yes… Very, very nice.

Tuesday 30th August 2011

Home 02/09/2011 Leave a comment

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Lazy morning. Well deserved I think.

Another of my favourite areas Xin Tian Di, the Old French Concession, a little like the lanes, full of lovely little boutiques and galleries. Nice.

And some pics of Pudong from the Bund by day that I took last time I was in Shanghai. Bet it’s changed as every time I go there seem to have been a few more skyscrapers kissing the clouds.

Back off to the airport at 1pm for our flight to Hong Kong. Home is within our sights and I’m just about ready for it.

 

Monday 29th August 2011

Home 01/09/2011 Leave a comment

Got up feeling grrrrreeaatttttt! What a difference a day makes… Twentyfour little hours…

Eggs Benedict Fiorentine for breakfast. Yum mee. As the old adage, or old advert, insists… Go to work on an egg… Mix with super-food-spinach (even tinned worked for Popeye) and there’s no stopping me!

We planned our day after breakfast and began on the Nanking Road just round the corner from the Hotel. There was a large place like a Kid’s World, called Bao Da Xiang, a cross between a mall and a department store with the wonderful strapline of: Kids grow up… luckily!

We spent four hours in there and came across almost every Chinese label we’d heard of and again, wrote copious notes, took as many pics as we could. By this point I had seen quite enough ugliness and tat so we decided to look at some loveliness instead, catching a taxi to ‘the lanes’ next.

These are a wonderful series of tiny elaborately paved alleyways of old brick buildings with quaint tiled roofs, crammed full of tiny higgledy piggledy boutiques, galleries, restaurants and bars all spreading off the Taikang Road in Tian Zi Fang.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

By five we were really whacked. We found a pretty café and just sat for an hour or so, drinking lemon tea, listening to a jazzy female singer and people watched. Back to the hotel for a wash and brush up then out to ‘M’ on the Bund, a fabulous restaurant with amazing views. Gorgeous food, great wine, lovely conversation, then downstairs to the Glamour Bar for cocktails till late. I drank Mai Tai’s and Sharon enjoyed her Shanghai Slings. I think we put the world to rights as usual and I think it was about 3am when I finally got to bed. What a fabulous day!

360 degrees of Shanghai from the Bund across to Pudong on a misty moisty evening. Amazing.

Sunday 28th August 2011

Home 01/09/2011 Leave a comment

 

            Ouch! Shouldn’t have had those Baileys. Should have gone to bed at a sensible hour. Should have packed my bags last night. But oh well, you’re only old enough to know better once…

Breakfast, (cooked of course,) and lots of tea made me feel a little better, as did not looking in the mirror much before leaving the hotel in another taxi for a thirteen storey shopping mall that I call the ‘Joy Luck Club.’ According to the ever patient Sharon it is, in fact called ‘Joy City.’ How lovely…  And how joyous is my life for having shopped in it for several hours! There was no childrenswear in the mall other than Zara and H&M but there was the biggest escalator in the world which travelled up five storeys… And a Starbucks…

Hot and sunny today, very hot and sunny. And I managed to leave my sunglasses in my room.

Next door we found a department store which had a really large kid’s department full of the low-to-mid range brands. It was a really good contrast to yesterday’s super-luxe., (fairly hideous too, mind you…) Took loads of notes, took loads of pics- the shop assistants were either remarkably helpful and tolerant, or too nervous to tell us off… But we bought not one thing, not a jot, which tells you more about what we saw than any amount of words.

A job well done and with a little time to spare, we hopped in a taxi to Tiananmen Square and were tourists for an hour. At the risk of sounding boring and repetetive… IT’S SO BIG!!!!! WOW!!!

I remember these images from the Tiananmen Square Massacre (4th June 1989) so well but thankfully for us it was all calm and sunny and full of sightseers eating ice creams. Beijing is so different from anywhere else I have been in China. The high rise tower blocks in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Shenzen are tall, slim and graceful. In Beijing they are larger, wider, uglier, have a much larger footprint. It feels much more communist, I suppose. It seems much more male and aggressive somehow. Even the way they speak is harsher, more gutteral. We met lots of lovely friendly, helpful people, but also some who were quite the opposite. It is not a place I would feel comfortable traveling on my own to I think, but I’d like to go back and see more, visit more of the historical sites, museums and the like. One day…

Quick lunch, another taxi to another airport, another lounge and another flight. Sooooooooo tired. Two and a half hours to Shanghai. Slept, read, avoided the food, slept, read, landed, bags, taxi, (no queue) 20 minute journey, (taxi didn’t get lost) lovely Langham Yangtze Hotel, nice room, ginandtonics in bar, bed. Sleep zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I love Shanghai.

Saturday 27th August 2011

Home 31/08/2011 Leave a comment

See what I mean about big…

After our long day yesterday and our even longer journey we decided to wake up when we woke up… no alarms. What luxury. I rose about 10.30am, feeling surprisingly chirpy. I spent an hour trying to get on my blog before I realised I couldn’t, as they are forbidden in China, which I must admit irritated me muchly. We met for brunch at 12 and planned our day; three areas to cover and a lot of miles.

 Beijing is a huge city. In fact everything about the place is giant sized, as befits the capital of such a giant sized and ever increasing country I suppose. The hotel translated all our destinations into Chinese (Mandarin?) for us and wrote them down on Hotel cards and we set off for an area of small independent local boutiques which was known to be quite studenty. Another very grumpy taxi driver who was extrememly unhelpful and very impatient and became quite abusive in the end turfed us out on a five lane highway on the wrong side of a barrier and we didn’t have a clue where we were meant to be going or how to get there, but we eventually found a parade of shops and began to feel less perturbed.

We ended up finding quite a few little gems and several of the brands we were looking for. We even bought several good samples. I found a few nice things for myself too- a lovely grey cotton frock with a cabled knitted bodice, a little lacy mohair sweater, a powder blue handknit cardi and a weird kind of skirt that turns into shorts- but not short, no, quite demure below the knee, maybe I should describe them more as culottes?

Next stop- a shopping mall we’d read about which we found relatively easily and the taxi driver was slightly more pleasant this time, dropping us conveniently outside a Starbucks. So, a triple shot skinny latte and a snack masquerading as a biscuit but which was in fact a teeth breaking gadget later, we began to shop. The mall was the size of a small to middling British town and it took us an hour and a half to locate the children’s area but it was a fairly pleasant walk. This mall was typical of hundreds of very upmarket malls in Beijing full of international brands catering for China’s new money. It was very expensive… And very busy and quite like Hong Kong really and we saw a lot of the same stuff that we’d seen there.

They employ interesting hairdressing techniques here. I’m just sorry we were on a schedule too tight to make the most of them. This image gave Sharon and I such bad giggles making the tears run so much I nearly lost a contact lens…

Instrument of hair torture No1

Does my ego look big in this?

Thanks to sharon for amazing photography. I was laughing so much mine came out blurred with camera shake.

Last stop, a final mall, and a good department store- more brands, some new, nicely presented and I managed to find three new limited edition Barbies in the ‘LBD Collection, (that’s ‘little black dress’) and joy of joys, the one with the blonde bob that I’ve been searching for, for over a year! It’s a Lindsay thing… If you don’t get it don’t worry about it!

Back to the hotel for 9.30pm, fairly knackered but starving and looking forward to a glass of wine. Quick shower and change, downstairs to the bar ‘Scarlett’ for supper and a drink and I wore a scarlet frock in keeping with the theme. Cocktails went down well, as did the delicious supper of a mixed platter of very good French cheeses, cold cuts and bread. Sounds weird, eating that in Beijing, but the restaurant and bar were managed by a French guy and when you’ve been on your feet from lunch time till ten in the evening,  comfort and familiarity are worth their weight. Next time we’ll look for some Peking Duck, promise!

The bar was fun- good DJ and friendly staff; food, wine, Bailey’s and coffee all extremely enjoyable, which is probably why we didn’t get to bed until 3.30am.

Friday 26th August 2011

Home 30/08/2011 Leave a comment

 

 

 

 

 

Beijing

One of the terminals at Beijing airport, one beautiful carapace…

            Ok, so the most annoying thing about China is that blogging and blogs are banned. So is facebook and half the internet sites you find yourself wanting to use. I’m writing this on word and will have to cut and paste it when I get back to Hong Kong.

We landed in Beijing on Friday evening at 11.30pm. Sharon looked white as a sheet and I had that ‘sea-legs’ feeling you get when you’ve flown a lot and you’re really tired. Beijing airport is so amazingly huge. The roof looks like a gargantuan alien spider has landed and spun a triangular web over the whole sky stretching as far as you can see.

It took a fifteen minute train ride and a forty minute walk to reach baggage claim and when we finally found the taxi rank we realised we were going to be very late to bed. There were three queues and singularly they would have been the biggest queue in the world ever. It took about an hour to get to the front of our queue and even when we got there we couldn’t persaude a driver to take us- he said our bags were too big! In the end we got an ugly clapped out mini-bus and the guy made us pay 600RMB… upfront. We found out later that it should have cost about 80! Bastard. And he got lost… we drove round in circles again whilst he was on the phone to the hotel… déjà vu or what?

The road leading up to our hotel was lined with dozens of crazy, technicolour, neon lit night clubs and people were milling around everywhere. All down the central reservation were street vendors selling dim sum and skewered morsels, most of which looked un-nameable. Wiry looking men in aprons were cooking on blazing, smoking, oil-drums. Tiny, rickety, chipped formica tables and chairs were set out around them and tiny, rickety, girly girls dressed in their baby doll, princess finery and hip guys in sharp, black duds with a Boots counter’s worth of product in their hair were sitting out, enjoying the Beijing equivalent of a kebab, whilst a million honking cars weaved erratically about them. Great street theatre, great to watch, which is just as well as we passed by them three, maybe four times…

Got to the Hotel G, at last, at 2am. Fab Hotel, very cool and an enormous room. I was tired but wired, couldn’t sleep, ended up talking to Jacob for ages, which was lovely, and writing and drinking lots of tea. Went to sleep about 3.30. Slept well.

%d bloggers like this: