Shanghai @ night with views across the Huangpu River

 Opened in 1994 the Purple Haze building was the first sizeable one in 

Pudong – extraordinary speed of development 

Some photos from Shanghai's waterfront showing the extraordinary that has transformed the Pudong district over the past 20 years or so. 

 Pudong – a forest of high buildings 

(above and below) 

 Flowers on the wall of the Bund 

Buildings close to the Bund on the Western Bank

China – walled in!

 The wall snakes over the mountains

If in Beijing for the first time a visit to the Great Wall is obligatory even though it took us hours to get there because of the traffic. Despite the time spent in jams the Great Wall is spectacular and worth the effort. Parts of the wall are very steep, so the soldiers must have kept very fit! It is also an amazing feat of engineering but a certainly deadly one with as many as 400,000 perishing during its construction.

JB and CRM @the Wall

 CRM iFoning the wall

CRM on the steepest part 

CRM ... nearly there 

Local man relaxing on the wall

China – a few photos from cruise on the Yangtze

 Leaving Chongqing at night sailing down the Yangtze

A city of 32 million people and formerly referred to as Chungking

The pagoda on the hill of Shibaozhai 

View from the top of the pagoda to the port

The adventure (4): The Karst landscape – Guilin to Yangshou

Chinese tourism – a small armada of boats 

sets off down the River Li (Guilin to Yangshuo)

After a night in Guilin we had a boat trip down the River Li to Yangshuo with the famous limestone Karst hills as the main feature. These steep hills are a recurring theme in Chinese landscape paintings. 

The cold, damp day with its swirling mists was a classic, although we would have preferred a rather warmer day...

 The limestone Karst hills shrouded with the obligatory mist

 Fellow boat passengers

(above and below)

 

 The national passion – taking photos of each other

Modern pedal power 

The adventure (3): two fine wines – one Chinese, one Russian

Two fine wines:

Although we didn't drink a bad wine while we were away in China and Russia, there were few highlights in China. Here is the best wine we drank in China and one of the best we had in Moscow.  

Tasya's Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2011
Grace Vineyard 
Our best bottle of Chinese wine 
drunk in a Hong Kong restaurant

2014 Cabernet Franc
Villa Victoria, ANAPA Valley 

In Moscow we chanced upon the excellent Wine & Crab restaurant, not far from Red Square. Here we had to try this very enjoyable Cabernet Franc.   

The adventure (2) – a few photos from Guilin

 Guilin's lake

After three nights in Hong Kong – one big international shopping opportunity – we flew to Guilin, our first stop in mainland China. Unlike the very impressive cities – Shanghai, Beijing etc. that we would see later in our trip, Guilin felt to be still part of the developing world. It was the first time that we came across electric scooters that can be a threat to pedestrians because they are so quiet. 

In contrast to Hong Kong which had been pleasantly warm, Guilin was decidedly cold.   

 In the distance the limestone Karst hills 

that are such a feature of this area 

(above and below)

 The Karst hills shrouded in mist are great 

favourite for Chinese landscape artists

Starting out on Thirsty Dragon

Back in London after nearly a month in Lisbon. Delighted to be back to a copy of Suzanne Mustachich's much acclaimed and award-winning Thirsty Dragon. I have just started the opening chapter and am confident that I will be enjoying reading the rest as well as learning about China and its relations with the West, especially the top wines of Bordeaux. A fuller review will follow.

After a windy night this morning was brilliantly clear – able to see Alexandra Palace and well beyond from Forest Hill.