Yesterday Sissi and I went to the Art Gallery to look at the new exhibition of Suzhou paintings. The theme for this exhibition is Suzhou and there were many fine examples on show. There were a few paintings showing a blend of the new and the old Suzhou and of course the amazing Dongfangjiemen building featured in many paintings. This is also known as the pants building.

Feeling completely underdressed I went along for this amazing dinner at the very very expensive and posh hotel that is the Jinji Hu Hotel. I was invited there by my good friend Amy who I haven’t seen for a while and so it was great to catch up in such a wonderful atmosphere. This is what greeted us when we walked into the reception room, so many wonderful looking starters and they even had Mocktails.

The main dining room was a sight to behold indeed and I’m not sure if I’ve ever had the pleasure of entering a room like this and being allowed to stay and eat. I was there as a filler for one of the empty seats, but that’s ok I had a great time eating food I’ll never be able to afford. Better still I was sitting near the front of the room and so it was perfect for watching the entertainment. I was also impressed that they got my name right, it was only after I saw my name I realised that I could stay. I have no idea what these snacks were in front of my name card because I was so full from eating everything else.

There was one person looking after two or people, our own personal hand. The young girl stood right behind me so I could not see her. Initially I was amazed when she appeared like magic to remove my first course plate. I had no sooner put down my chopsticks and there she was. The first course was a selection of meats and vegetables which was designed to look like one of the mountain ranges nearby Suzhou, in fact if you go to the Suzhou Museum you will see a similar representation made from cut stone near the central pond.

We had Musician’s and Kunqu Opera singers and as usual the volume is way too high, a common problem at Chinese events. To make matters worse I was about 6 feet from the huge speaker stack and so I had to put my finger in my left ear to stop it exploding, my ear that is.

The food kept coming, wave upon wave of perfectly presented dishes and I ate just about everything apart from the sweet and sour fish which was tasteless. The abalone dish was so so, but the tastiest dish by far was the small portion of Australian Beef that had been cooked for two hours and fell apart just by looking at it. Suzhou food is traditionally sweet and quite tasteless really, so I tend to eat the more spicy food and so this banquet is really wasted on me because I think that the food has little or no flavour. The surroundings and the presentation and the service and the entertainment was all marvelous but at the end of the day the flavours were bland. I have no idea what this would have cost in the real world but I know that I would have been disappointed if I had to foot the bill.

I found this wee beastie wandering the carriage of the metro and he was just about to get flattened and so I picked him up and dropped him off at the next station. Now I’m not sure if that’s where he wanted to go but I thought that this option might be better for him.

Now if he had got on this train I think he would have been pretty safe……..

If you did not know already about this then let me tell you. Airbnb not only help with accommodation but you can also join a local experience. I got an email from them and in the email they offered me $25 off my next experience and so as I will be travelling to Brisbane in a few weeks I decided to check out what they have there. Was I surprised at the cost of these tours, they are certainly sticking it to the Chinese tourist. Most of the pricing is just outrageous. Have a look for yourself,

ART CLASS

Southbank Paint & Sip Art Lessons

¥ 4,429 per person · 2 hours · Drinks, Equipment included

4.673 reviews3

HISTORY WALK

The Woolstores of Teneriffe

¥ 1,611 per person · 1 hour

4.8715 reviews15

BAKING CLASS

The Art of Sourdough bread making

¥ 6,442 per person · 3 hours · Snacks, Equipment included

5.015 reviews15

HISTORY WALK

Explore Urban Renewal in Newstead

¥ 3,141 per person · 1.5 hours

ART WALK

Brisbane Street Art Hands On Tour

¥ 4,751 per person · 2.5 hours · Equipment included

BIKE RIDE

eBike your way to Brisbane

¥ 5,637 per person · 2 hours · Equipment included

5.01 review1

WORKSHOP

HEALTHY KOMBUCHA AND OUR GUT FLORA

¥ 4,188 per person · 1.5 hours · Drinks, Snacks, Equipment included

4.8312 reviews12

BIKE RIDE

MTB Tour | Mt Coot-tha & Gap Creek

¥ 4,027 per person · 3 hours · Equipment included

BIKE RIDE

Cycling Tour | Mt Coot-tha & Riverloop

¥ 4,027 per person · 3 hours · Equipment included

5.01 review1

WORKSHOP

Learn To Crochet Amigurumi Toys Basics

¥ 3,785 per person · 2.5 hours · Snacks, Equipment included

COOKING CLASS

Sourdough Cooking for Health

¥ 6,442 per person · 3 hours

Sissi and I went to an area on the other side of Jinji Lake that I had never been to before. It’s a small inlet leading on to the canal system, but on one side there is a lovely wooded area full of some kind of pine tree. The water here seems so clean and it was refreshing to walk over the carpet of pine needles and the smell rising from them was quite pleasant as we strolled in the winter sun.

New life is appearing through the brown underlay as the new suckers seek to climb to the heavens making this miniature landscape underfoot look quite spectacular.

We saw two old people fishing and by the time we reached them they had hung up their fishing nets to clean them of the debris that they had picked up along with the fish, however I never saw the fish.

As we leave the woods we come into a very commercial looking place filled with new restaurants and cafes, but they have been built to look as if they are from a time long long ago. I’m sure that tonight this place will be heaving because today is Christmas Eve.

I’ll not be partying this evening, in fact I have a class and as far as I’m concerned it’s just another day of the week. I am lucky that I can avoid Christmas this year which suits me just fine.

I went to Cagic Coffee today which is only a short stroll from home. It does look rather expensive and upmarket but it was really quite pleasant and more importantly, the coffee was good.

I initially sat just inside the door because I spotted these two comfy looking retro chairs and thought that they would be perfect to sit and read for a while.

The coffee arrived at my table, I ordered a double expresso and was not disappointed. The coffee was strong, very strong in fact and it was a pleasant surprise indeed. I really did not think that this glitzy looking cafe would deliver a lovely double expresso for 20rmb.

I was reading my book, but the door was being opened too many times and the weather was coming in, so I headed upstairs and parked my arse at the window.

I sat for about an hour and a half reading James Patterson’s “London Bridges”. I started reading the Alex Cross series of books a few months ago and I’m still enjoying them, although at times I just have to ignore parts of the plot because it does get a bit silly at times.

It’s time to leave and as I looked around the room, every women that I see had their heads buried in their phones. A sign of the times indeed.

Everyday I wander through this world and just look around. I must be one of the few people not looking at my phone when I am walking around, well in China at least. For years I have been a people watcher and have had many hours of fun criticising and commenting on folk for many years and I am sure that I have also been on the receiving end, in fact I know I have. As an old white guy in China with a white beard and looking quite dashing of course, I get a lot of curious looks.

Women in particular fascinate me, one because I am attracted to them, but secondly because of the amount of make up they plaster on their faces. This is the same all over the world of course. No country is immune I think, but some countries take it to a whole different level. When I was back in the UK this year it was the fake tans that I focused on. There was also a distinct line around the jaw bone of most women where they must have thought their face ended because all of a sudden there was white skin. The fake face and the real face did not become a blend but it was more like a demarcation line. Some of these women want to lose weight, stop using the make up and see what difference that makes to the scales. For years I’ve wondered why so many women look as if they work in a circus, when really most of them should just bin all the product and go o’natural and many would look the better for it.

In China they chase the porcelain look, pure white skin is what they want here. The other day on the metro I thought that the girl who came on and sat down opposite was dead because I could see no colour in her at all, even her hands had a deathly hue. But in China the women don’t seem to wear as much make up compared to the UK for instance, so they do look a bit more natural apart of course for the zombies that you see from time to time.

However they are into their eyebrows, I mean you could set your watch by just how sharp some of these babies are. But then I always seem to get an image of Groucho Marx into my head when I see the crazy eyebrows here. I mean are they doing it for a joke or a bet?

They also get their eyebrows tattooed here, but they look quite ridiculous at times. The stick out so much that it’s Groucho Marx that I see and I can only see the eyebrows and not the rest of the face. The eyebrows have a mind of their own and they have a body attached to them. The eyebrows often seem to be in the wrong place on the face. The remnants of the real eyebrows stubbornly betray this fact. I just want to ask one question, “Why?”

Why would you get this optional extra and stick it on your skull for the whole world to see when it is so fucking ridiculous looking. The fashion icons of today have lot to answer for. I have one friend that has real eyebrows but she goes once a week to make sure they are sharp and on time. One day I’ll get into trouble for staring too much and they’ll think I might be a mad stalker, when in fact it’s the eyebrows that I’m stalking.

I also feel that many of them are very self conscious about them too. There is a certain air of “look at me, look at my wonderful eyebrows” But I think this is the eyebrows talking, there is a darker side to this whole affair……………….they have taken over the mind and body like a parasite does and it’s them that is in control. I think the eyebrow is trying for world domination and it has been a slow process up until now, but I feel that it is an insipid creature with malice aforethought and it will finally have its day. For many years they only seemed to attack men and make them look stupid. There are so many fine examples, even I have been attacked by them and I have to constantly fight them along with the dreaded nasal hair and ear hair. When all three combine then they can make your life hell and of course make you look completely stupid and powerless. Sometime the eyebrows will join together and when this happens then you are just a lost cause.

This even happens in women, but so far they have been lucky and it’s not an epidemic situation, but it only seems to affect women of certain ethnic backgrounds. But let’s get back to China. Why is it that this phenomena has finally reached the shores of China?, well I’ll tell you…………China has embraced many things from the west., like Starbucks,KFC and McDonald’s and the like and this is where the cracks began to appear. They look to the west and see how popular things are and they grab it with both hands because it makes them stand out, they want to be individuals…………….and it can be difficult to stand out in a country with such a large population. This is where the eyebrow saw a niche market and for a while there were only a few ridiculous looking women out there but now you see them everywhere. The price tag for this is not cheap. Eyebrows are raking in the money, at least $100 per pair for fake tattooed eyebrows and I have no idea what the running costs are for them But I think it might be cheaper to own and run a Lamborghini.

In a world full of uncertainty everyday and now we have to contend with the final battle of the eyebrow. We all know that Trump has been infected in many ways by cosmetic enhancements. He is full of parasites. His hair, his eyebrows, his skin colour and of course they have all combined forces to attack the brain and turn it into a an even more Twisted, Stupid individual. it wasn’t only the Simpsons that predicted the Trump presidency, in “Back to the Future 2” one of the characters is Biff and he was as thick as pig shit.

He happened to find an almanac from the future that Marty McFly had lost and he changed the course of history and you only have to look at the similarities of Biff and Trump to see what I mean. If you want to see what is in store for the coming years, watch Back to the Future 2. It’s really quite a sad tale.

you may think I am off topic, but no………………I am just trying to point out to you the path that we are on. We must at all costs resist the eyebrow and not let it take over our life and of course our face. If you could somehow rip them off and then stand on them and save these poor women, but alas I fear that we can only sit back and watch and so I will. I will continue to monitor the advancement of this invasion, it’s all I can really do. If I have an opportunity I will get pictures, but you must realise just how difficult this can be. They are very sensitive to being photographed and the host can turn quite nasty if they catch you. However I will endeavour to provide you with examples and I will risk life and limb in this pursuit.

Cars are more than just a mode of transport, although many people don’t see them that way. They just think it’s a car and it gets me from A to B, I don’t think that way at all. Cars can be beautiful and cars can be like a working breathing piece of art, especially the old ones. Cars can have a soul. Cars today are boring, stale and really only practical. Design is ruled by the puruit of being frugal and of course safety. There are so many legal specifications for a car now that beauty is hard to achieve, on the other hand praacticality and inovation have advanced. Most cars have the same shape and they all came out of the same wind tunnel. Cars of old were designed on a piece of paper with a totally different set of parameters and I wish they would bring that back.

The Shanghai car Museum is a huge building which is near Anting North and it seems to be in the middle of car country. When you get out of the train station it seems miles from civilisation. I had no money on me for the bus, because I forgot to take any and so my only option was to walk the 5 km to the museum. By the way I use my phone to pay for everything, you don’t need to carry money in China, but then again it seems like you do. I left the industrial area and as I headed to the museum and came into a more residential area where I had lunch.

It’s so well laid out and all you have to do is follow the road and the arrows and you wil eventually end up on the top floor. The entry fee is 60 RMB, but they asked me if I was 60 years old and I said yes and so I got a discount of 20 RMB. I know Karma will get me, but I think she knew I was telling a wee lie. Luckily enough this also covered my coffee and cake that I got later. The museum starts off at the beginning of the cars’ history and as you proceed through the museum the times change and the music and the backdrops that accompany each era. There is also some wonderful photographs of old Shanghai. There is one picture that shows a guy moving the traffic lights, apparently China used to drive on the correct side of the road, which we all know is the left and not the right.

I could have stayed for many hours just looking at some of these old cars and it would have been even better if you had the opportunity to sit in them and imagine just for a short time what it must be like to own and drive one of these icons. For me the car that stood out was the Green Aston Martin which was just exquisite. It was sitting alongside some good company too. There was a Ferrari, but I can’t remember the model and then there was the Jaguar XK 120 and the Gullwing Mercedes SL300. To sit and be surrounded by such beauty and better still I was there myself so soak up the atmosphere. In fact as I was leaving there was a school tour coming in and so I was very lucky not have to compete with them.

I had a great day wandering around this museum which I nearly had all to myself. There are so many great cars on show and if I had money then this is what I would love to do, collect cars. I can’t begin to imagine just how much money is tied up here, but the quality and the selection of the cars is very good. Of course there are many old cars that maybe should be in the museum but then it’s all a matter of personal taste. For me I thoroughly enjoyed the Shanghai collection and would urge anyone that enjoys cars to make the effort to go here. If you are visiting Shanghai then I think you can take metro line 11 to get there but I’m not sure of which station to alight from.

I went for wander around Suzhou today with the Album of Suzhou guys. We were visiting familiar places, although I had not been to the Taoist temple of Taibo before. Next to it is a symbolic gate which commemorates the leaving of many traitors and prisoners from the Ming dynasty. This guy below was the gate keeper of the temple and I wish I could send him after the two wee bastards that made a mess of the house.

This is the kind of guy you need to send after wee arseholes anywhere really.

Notice the middle finger in this picture, I never realised this gesture was so old. The temple nevertheless was an interesting little temple and worth a visit.

After here we went to an old street which is famous because it was the home of a very famous assassin called Zhuanzhu. A story for another day.

After here we made our way to Yipu, which is a lovely wee garden in Suzhou which I have been to a few times before, but it’s always good to return and get informed from an expert.

My favourite picture for the day. After here we went for a local dish of sweet soybean soup and a kind of fried bread which hit the spot after a few hours of wandering around in the cold. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of that, but I can share a picture of lunch 😊