Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Author: admin

  • Chengdu – Airportsecuritygate

    Chengdu – Airportsecuritygate

    After the excitement of getting to the airport, I was pleased to have arrived safely. After checking my bag in, I went through security and I was pleased with how marvellously this was going. Until I’m around thirty seconds into the airside part of the terminal having cleared security and I hear a “stop” being shouted very loudly. I turn round, wondering which idiot has caused a disturbance, and then realise that a tall Chinese member of security staff is running towards me at some considerable pace.

    At this point, I wonder whether they’ve realised that I might not have entirely followed the rules on road crossing as a pedestrian, and wonder what other little local cultural faux pas I’ve managed to make. The fact that the security man charging towards me has a gun also doesn’t fill me with delight and I decide that I’ll just stay standing where I am to avoid panicking the armed man.

    Just as I expect to be arrested, the security man smiles and with both hands he hands me a passport. I wondered initially what I’m supposed to do with this passport I’ve been given, until I realise that it’s mine and that I’d left it at the security area.

    An idiot abroad….

  • Chengdu – Taxibacktoairportgate

    Chengdu – Taxibacktoairportgate

    I don’t like taxis and try to avoid using them, but there are occasional times when there aren’t a great deal of options. Chengdu Airport is around 12 miles from the city with not pedestrian friendly pavements, so even walking wasn’t an option. Today, there are Metro services to the airport, but back in 2014 there weren’t. There was some form of bus arrangement that I couldn’t make head nor tail of (at the time, there was very little information on-line and the bus service didn’t have a bus stop, so I had no idea how I was supposed to find it), so that left me with the sole option of a taxi.

    My initial plan was to get the Ibis hotel to assist in booking a taxi, but they said that the taxi services didn’t operate like that and it would be expensive if they tried. They instead wrote down in Chinese that I wanted to go to the airport and they also wrote the price that they thought I should be charged. I was then told to stand outside in a certain place and local taxi drivers would stop if I waved at them, then I should proffer them my piece of paper. To me, this sounded like a right bloody hassle. But, after reviewing my choices, hassle it had to be.

    Anyway, after around 30 seconds of my vaguely waving at some cars, a taxi pulls over. But there’s someone in the front seat (other than the driver) and so I assume that he can’t pick me up. So, I stand there looking confused in my very British way. The driver gets out and ushers me into the car in what, if I’m being honest, looked a grumpy manner. At this stage the driver doesn’t know where I want to go, so I’m confused at his confidence. Although to be fair, I had seen one other European all week, so someone standing with a bag outside a hotel looking for a taxi is quite likely wanting the airport.

    So, I’m now in this taxi, wondering how much ransom will be demanded for my safe return, as I’m sure I must be being kidnapped. However, they now know I want the airport as I’ve handed over the paper that the hotel gave me. The driver speaks no English at all, but the other passenger knows about eight words, so he conducts negotiations. Since we’re now trundling along in the taxi, I don’t feel that I have any negotiating strength here if a high price is demanded. Then the passenger asks for my phone, so I assume that I’ve lost that as part of this kidnap. It transpired that he was trying to look at my boarding pass to see which terminal I wanted (there was I think one terminal for domestic and one for international, next to each other, but with separate dropping off points). But, back then, I used printed boarding passes, so I didn’t have one as I was getting it at the airport. So, after five minutes of my wondering what this man was jabbering on about, we had a lovely journey in the car in total silence. Which, to be honest, I quite liked, as conversation was never going to work out.

    About two minutes before we arrived at the airport, the passenger in front said “40” (he wasn’t seemingly involved in the taxi operation, but the driver obviously decided he didn’t want to engage with the idiotic English person, so the passenger could do it instead), which is what the hotel said was the maximum fare I should pay. I was firstly moderately irritated that the taxi driver was getting two fares here, but then I quickly realised that I wasn’t being mugged or kidnapped and I was being asked to pay the fare that was reasonable. The photo that I took was one of relief that I’d been dropped off at the airport and I was ready to board my flight.

    Then I realised that I had allowed six hours to get to the airport, and I had arrived in twenty minutes, so I was now 5 hours 40 minutes early for my flight. Although, to be fair, this happens a lot….. If I ever go back to Chengdu, I’d be getting the Metro though, thank goodness for improvements in public transportation.

  • Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Twenty

    Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Twenty

    The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored…..

    Bayard of Ten Toes

    The dictionary defines this as “to walk on foot, Bayard was a horse famous in old romances”. To be more precise, Bayard was a magical horse as it had the ability to change its size to suit the number of riders who mounted it. Bayard dates back to at least the twelfth century and Chaucer also made reference to it in the Canterbury Tales in 1286. This is another one of these phrases which seems to have been rarely used, but I like the Bayard of Ten Toes, it’s something which deserves to be brought back into usage….

  • London – Tower of London (Poppies)

    London – Tower of London (Poppies)

    This is how the Tower of London’s moat looked when I visited back in August 2014, a sea of poppies to mark the centenary of the start of the First World War.

    The installation was called ‘Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red’ and it remained in place between July and November 2014. Paul Cummins was the artist and Tom Piper designed the concept behind it, which was a magnificent sight in the Tower’s moat.

  • Luxembourg – BiFi

    Luxembourg – BiFi

    These snacks don’t have much to do with Luxembourg, other than this is where I first encountered them. They’re also sold in other northern European countries and particularly in Germany, where they’re made. They’re effectively just Peperamis (which are only sold in the United Kingdom and in Ireland to my knowledge), but nonetheless, they’re in a different branding and therefore exciting to me.

  • British Airways (Heathrow T5 to Chengdu)

    British Airways (Heathrow T5 to Chengdu)

    The current Coronavirus means that I can’t write about any recent flights on British Airways, so here’s one from six years ago. As a rider at this stage, I wasn’t intending to post these photos when I took them, so they’re not really a very complete set covering the aircraft’s exterior or interior. But, I took a photo of all the food, which is something I rarely neglect my obligations towards….

    Back in 2014, British Airways decided that China was their future and they started a flight to Chengdu as their third destination in the country, as they already flew to Shanghai and Beijing (as well as Hong Kong). There was a documentary at the time where BA management, including their boss then Willie Walsh, said how important China was to them, although their enthusiasm waned and Chengdu was dropped a few years later, in early 2017. This flight was in Club World, or business class, with the aircraft being the Boeing Dreamliner.

    The screen for the IFE.

    The foldable foot rest, which then joined together with the main part of the seat to form a bed. BA have recently announced a new Club Suite, which looks amazing, so the days of having to step over someone else will soon be firmly in the past.

    The menu.

    The watermelon, feta and cucumber salad.

    The Szechuan braised pork with bean curd, an appropriate dish as this was the area of China that we were flying to.

    The summer berry cheesecake with mascarpone cream.

    The breakfast menu.

    Fresh fruit and the mango fruit smoothie. The smoothies on BA are world class and I always tried to get refills if they had enough.

    The continental breakfast option.

    I took these items from the Club Kitchen on board to nibble on between meals.

    I can’t remember much about these meals, primarily because I ate them six years ago, but I was rarely disappointed with BA’s food. I also know that I got my first choice for all meals on this flight, which is always a bonus. Unfortunately, I didn’t note the registration number of the aircraft or much else.

  • Chengdu – New Century Global Center

    Chengdu – New Century Global Center

    When I was in Chengdu, back in 2014, I thought it would a good idea to get the Metro to go and see what was the largest building in the world in terms of floor space.

    This was my view when I got off the Metro, a building so big that it was almost impossible to photograph it in one go. I’ve never seen anything so substantial before, a crazy piece of commercialism.

    It’s a sprawling building, with 18 million square feet of floor space.

    chengdufromfront.jpg

    This is the mall’s official photo, they probably had to go back about half a mile to take this and get the whole building in.

    Some photos of the interior, which I remember wasn’t all finished when I went. It also wasn’t particularly busy and many shops weren’t let. There are two 1,000 room hotels at the shopping mall, as well as a water park, ice-skating rink and cinema. But, although it may have felt just a bit too big, it was nonetheless still quite marvellous to see the largest shopping mall in the world and I did enjoy my Subway experience here.

  • Chengdu – New Century Global Center (Subway)

    Chengdu – New Century Global Center (Subway)

    And going back to 2014 now. The New Century Global Center is one of the largest buildings in the world and I visited it around one year after it was constructed. More on this in another post….

    And this was the first time that I tried to order a Subway in China. I find the ordering process difficult enough in English if I’m being honest, but I bravely decided that I could get away with pointing. So, I go in and there was a friendly member of staff who spoke hardly any English, but she excitedly got on the phone to tell them about my arrival. A manager appeared from nowhere about thirty seconds later and she spoke nearly perfect English, she was thrilled as I was the first English speaking customer she’d served in months and she wanted to practice the language. At the time, and indeed probably now, Chengdu city centre doesn’t attract huge numbers of English visitors.

    I don’t go to Subway much, primarily as I’m moderately obsessed with Quiznos, although I don’t get to visit there very often. But, this was one of the better Subways that I’ve visited and the menu at the time was near identical to the US menu (unlike when I visited a Subway India, which is more of a different set-up) and the food tasted fine. I didn’t really take photos in the same way back then, although at least I have a picture of my American looking Sub, which is also in American looking branding of subway.com that I don’t think I thought about at the time. I say that it was the first time that I ordered a Subway in China, it was also the last, I never got round to going to another one after this.

  • Florence – Uffizi Gallery (Hercules Slaying the Centaur Nessus)

    Florence – Uffizi Gallery (Hercules Slaying the Centaur Nessus)

    I thought at first that this sculpture was Roman, but only the torso of the centaur (half man, half horse) remained and so the rest, including the head and legs of the centaur and the entirety of Hercules, was added in the sixteenth century. Well, other than the feet of Hercules, they’re mostly original Roman as well. It depicts Hercules slaying Nessus who had tried to kill Deianira, the wife of Hercules.

    The element that I liked most about this sculpture is that it has been on display in this corridor since 1595 and it’s near the main entrance to the upper floors of the gallery, which is where visitors start their tour. There must have been countless millions who have looked at this sculpture and there can’t be many artworks in the world that have had this uninterrupted period of being on public display.

    The sixteenth century additions to the sculpture were made by Giovanni Caccini, but over the last few years there has been a restoration of it and they’ve been able to see exactly where the joins in the sculpture have been made, the merging of the old and new. They also discovered that the stance of the centaur was changed slightly and that more work was done on the foot of Hercules than had previously been realised. The same recent re-examination of the sculpture also found that the original marble is from Asia, whereas Caccini used marble from Tuscany.

  • Florence – Uffizi Gallery (I Corridoi di Galleria)

    Florence – Uffizi Gallery (I Corridoi di Galleria)

    The corridors of the Uffizi are iconic and they form the base of the gallery’s large collections, with rooms leading off them. And what is interesting is that the word ‘gallery’ in the sense of displaying artworks or artefacts may derive from here, when the word originally meant an area at the side of a building.

    This is the view towards the Palazzo Vecchio from the crossing gallery, with the top floor windows on each side containing the corridors.

    The frescoes on the ceiling date to the late sixteenth century and the early seventeenth centuries. There would have been tapestries on the walls, but these have now been removed as the light was damaging them. As an introduction to the museum, these corridors are an exciting sight as they stretch off into the distance.