CHINA 2010 WEDNESDAY 28th JULY

For the second morning running Keith’s mobile phone alarm has failed to go off for no apparent reason. It’s a good job he is ‘programmed’ to wake up early. As for me I slept on until he disturbed me before leaving at 8.45am.

Watching TV whilst having my breakfast the rain continues across China giving no end of problems to the Yangtse River. In some regions bridges are collapsing and up to the 14th of July 330 people have died with as many missing. In Dalian the oil clean up is still in progress. The cause of the explosion in the refinery came after a tanker had discharged its cargo and a ‘technical mixture’ was pushed down the pipe line. I am sure Keith will understand it all. I have watched scenes of the clear up operation which seems to be a little disorganised to say the least. There is plenty of man power but not sufficient clean up materials so the workforce are doing the best they can with bamboo poles and small cans whilst on ‘Golden Pebble Beach’ (an area that would normally be packed with Russians as well as local holidaymakers at this time of the year) is deserted as people attempt to clear the oil from the sand using large plastic shovels and buckets. This area and the ban on fishing is going to last for some time. On a lighter note lots of people are visiting ‘Expo 2010’ in Shanghai and every day we see a different country featured at the Exhibition. But the hot weather continues and such a large volume of people I am still not sure I want to go despite the adverts for some unusual varieties of ice-cream!

This afternoon I proposed we took a 31 bus to the terminus which just happens to be by the top of ‘Yandung Lake’. A journey of over 20 minutes on such a bumpy bus we could have almost been on an ancient fairground ride the way it banged and jostled us around.

The Lake begins as a small river in the Jiangtou district of the city and begins to widen into Jiangtou Park but before entering the park I spotted some ornate roofs of another Temple. Stepping through the gateway and passing a lovely display of fresh fruit on the only stall in the courtyard we found 3 Temples, 2 of which were very small but had such colourful scenes on their roofs. Different characters and symbols but my favourite was the one with two happy fat Buddha’s alongside a bright coloured phoenix. It was a bit smelly and Keith had moved back to the main road ready to enter the park.

Our first sight was a large curved weir falling down to the narrowest part of this vast lake where two boys were having fun messing by the water despite the warning signs. We had to cross long narrow stepping stones rather than a bridge for a change to reach the other side where the older generation were playing cards whilst the children messed about by the water. Small covered boats were available for hire but it seems the older children were happy to fish. A couple of young girls appeared to be collecting a type of spawn – quite what it was we have no idea but it certainly wasn’t frogspawn. This part of the lake was surrounded by some lovely apartment blocks and the ‘Sheraton Hotel’ constructed of gold coloured glass.

We couldn’t walk along the second section of the lake due to metal hoarding blocking the way.
The third part was managed a little way but reaching the security gate the official wouldn’t let us go any further so we had to return to the streets.

‘Songbai Park’ was the fourth section. Again a lovely small park with nice bridges and superb reflections in the water but no more photos as my camera tells me it is full. I know the card is almost empty and no matter what I try to do it will not work.

We continued to walk by the lake watching the egrets catching small fish on the water’s surface. Hiding under a dirty smelly bridge was an unusual bird, black and grey and much fatter than the white egrets. We were getting tired by now and the taxis did not want to take us due to their busy period rapidly approaching. I noticed the Football Stadium across the lake and as the bus had gone by on our way in we headed in that direction. We arrived at a stop the same time as a number 31 drew up.

Our journey back was lovely as we went along an elevated section giving views over the lake on our left and the sea on our right. We were almost home when the bus came to a halt along a designated bus lane. The bus in front had broken down. We waited a while and then our driver decided to reverse but a 22 was immediately behind us. A female passenger got up and went to the back to indicate to the driver of 22 to reverse. There was a gap in the section of the lane that we could just get through but before our driver had completed the manoeuvre number 22 was right behind us again. The traffic on the main road gave way and we were able to alight a few metres down the road outside ‘Rainbow’.

Tonight we went to eat in a restaurant literally round the corner and called ‘The Soup Expert’. As we stepped into the small but well organised place we were shown to a table under the ceiling air conditioning unit and handed the menu. We assume the proprietor came and in excellent English helped choose 3 dishes, chicken, a grouper in a chilli sauce and a dish of broccoli and other local vegetable namely pak choi . He then disappeared after telling us he came from Hong Kong when we complimented him on his English. The staff, as usual were very friendly and the food especially the fish excellent and we wondered why we hadn’t been here before. We will have to return as I am intrigued to know what is in the stone shape container that most of the people had ordered and why didn’t we have soup?