Space Walking

The last few days have been consumed by the space walk. It was all broadcast live, which was fairly risky, but all went well. Our guides were desparate to be finished in time to watch on Saturday and again for the landing on Sunday. Edwin Maher reads the news on the official English channel, and they havent ducked the milk scandal either. That is reported on each day, including the Premier visiting the children in hospital. Meanwhile the American economy still seems to be in freefall. Our final night in Shanghai was the obligatory trip on the river to look at the lights, which is spectacular, but does have gross consumerism written all over it. But they do have longlife globes everywhere and all rubbish is separated and recycled and they have many more solar panels than we have.
On Sunday afternoon we flew to Guilin which is absolutely stunning - Halong Bay but on land.
On Monday morning we went on a river boat down to Yangshou- 4 hours of just spectacular scenery. It is a major tourism industry with at least 50 boats on the river each one carrying up to 100 people. We could see 10 boats ahead & behind us.
When we got to Yangshou we had a 15 minute walk through the town to our hotel. The town is nestled among the limestone peaks, some right next to the walls of the buildings.
In the evening we went to spectacular performance on water, a sort of modern Chines opera performed by a cast of 600 to an audience of 2000 in tiered seats looking out on the lake. The lighting and effects were stunnung. It was devised by the same guy Zhing Jaimou who was responsible for the Olympic opening & closing ceremonies. It has been running for 4 years & has 2 shows every night.

Tuesday 30 September


These are very sophisticated cities -well dressed people, all using mobile phones, wide roadways, clearly the spoilt only child being taken for treats, lots of retail therapy.
This week is National Week, a week's holiday for most people except in the tourist industry. We flew to Kunming yesterday and visited the Stone Forest today a very extensive area like the Pinnacles in western Australia and absolutely packed with holiday crowds. The food is different in each of the regional areas we have visited, this area has goats cheese and the soup is served at differnt times in the meal,although so far it is usually tomato & egg with variations. This province has a high proportion of minority groups and they were running the tourist activities at the Stone Forest. They wear very elaborate costumes and many Chinese were being dressed up in the costumes for photo taking.