The Frods

Our guidebook has not been written to encourage peace of mind. “South Africa”, it states, “has weak drink-driving laws, and does not enforce them anyway. So be prepared to take evasive action if you see someone driving erratically. The police will just look on, but the most they will do is perhaps offer a hand to rescue a car from a ditch”. We’re off to try a few of the wines in Stellenbosch and although after reading this I’m still going to spit the wines out after tasting them, it does not make me feel more relaxed about driving.

Overall wine consumption in South Africa is apparently declining – as it is in many countries – but production is at an all-time high, with the balance being taken up by exports, which are doubling every 5 years or so. 25 years ago, there was really only one well-known vineyard – KWV – which sold its mostly rather indifferent wine around the world. There are now hundreds of vineyards, and the number is growing all the time, as is the quality. There’s even a book, the Platter’s guide, which reviews South African wines and is published every year. “You may call it a book, we call it our bible” as one vineyard owner put it. The book is getting fatter every year, and there are signs of new wineries opening up. I even get excited about the idea of buying a 30 hectare wine estate in Franschhoek, asking price £1M, until Pamela points out that enjoying wine consumption is not necessarily a good apprenticeship for wine production.

We start by exploring Hermanus, which looks like a cross between an American coastal town and somewhere on the English South Coast like Worthing. It’s attractive in an odd, poorly built sort of way. We visit the Wine Village, a shop which has reputedly has the largest range of South African wines. The manager, Paul, is a man after my own heart; he starts by asking me to explain what wines I like and why, so that he can build up an idea of the best wines to recommend. I could spend a fortune in this shop and, as they ship to anywhere in the world, perhaps I will… “This is the wine for you”, he says as he lovingly strokes the label of the extraordinary Chocolate Block, “but I’m going to need to work on the owner to allow me to sell it to you – it’s so rare”. Sadly, shipping from South Africa is uneconomic at the kind of quantities I’m interested in – about 100 Rand a bottle. Sea freight becomes worthwhile from about 400 bottles, but that’s too many for me.

The accommodation is a delightful Bed and Breakfast in central Stellenbosch, called the Villa Grande. It’s more of a hotel, even to the point of (soon) having its own in-house restaurant. After the financial excesses of the Grootbos, this is great value. The owner is a keen wine buff, points us in the direction of some good vineyards and lends us his copy of the 2006 Platter’s guide. He even recommends the Wijnhuis (Wine House) restaurant, where the wine list is enormous and the waitresses all quite happy to be chatted up by Michael.

We start the tasting at Thelema, a relatively new winery (it’s not even on the map). The girl managing the tasting sports the rather implausible name of “Chateau”, and she knows her stuff. The whites are excellent, with 2 crisp Sauvignon blancs and an unusual lightly-oaked Chardonnay called Ed’s Reserve. The reds are also good, with 2 Merlots: a standard one which at 90 Rand (£7) is better value then their award-winning reserve at 225 Rand (£17); two Cabs both of which are fantastic (one is intriguing in that it has a slight flavour of mint and is most unusual) and a well-made Shiraz. This is a great start.

The neighbouring vineyard is Tokara, which is a bit chi-chi with manicured grounds including waterfalls, modern art on in the entrance hall and a top-class restaurant attached to the vineyard. There’s even an open fire in the tasting room, which interferes with one’s palate during tasting. Despite this, their two ranges of wine – Tokara and Zondernaam – are both good and the latter in particular, excellent value.

De Trafford was unfortunately closed, but we were able to try a number of their consistently excellent wines in the shop. Rust & Vrede (means Rest and Peace), was another high-point, including a tour of the cellars, which were simple bins with chalked board identifying the wine: the way it should be. We also bought the 2004 Pinotage from Kanonkop, which was released the day before our visit. It’s one of the very best of this varietal, which is unique to South Africa, and supposedly originally a graft of Cinsaut vines onto Pinot Noir roots. The wine is luscious and fruity, possibly to be confused with a Shiraz to an inexperienced palate.

The only disappointment of the day was Ernie Els, where a celebrity sportsman has teamed up with a local winemaker to produce good wines, which are over-priced, limited in range and served in a snooty atmosphere. But overall we had an amazing time.

The best wine we tried was probably the Chocolate Block. It’s an intriguing mixture of Rhone grape varieties (Syrah, Cinsaut etc) with Cabernet Sauvignon, creating an intense chocolate taste.

Stellenbosch itself is a delightful town, whose white buildings are mostly turn of the century Dutch architecture. The University taught exclusively in Afrikaans until about 10 years ago, but has now started teaching more and more in English. With 10 official languages, the South African education system could easily be a quasi-social barrier, so a move to English in Higher Education seems like a good move.

Next stop: Bushman’s Kloof, a nature reserve.

The temptation with Africa is to dismiss it as a failed continent, where nothing works nor ever will. On arrival in Johannesburg, the BA lounge reinforces this view, with leaking shower head, pipes that are not firmly fixed to the wall, chipped plates and a faulty coffee machine. 25 years have passed since I was last in South Africa and, on the face of it, not much seems to have changed. There is already a lot of excitement about the World Cup in 2010, but will that new terminal really be ready on time? Will all the stadiums be built?

South Africa has, of course, always been the richest and most developed country in Black Africa, with its natural resources, extensive infrastructure and developed businesses. But since I was last here, Apartheid has gone without bloodshed, Zimbabwe has collapsed into famine from being the farming capital of the continent, Mozambique is no longer at war with itself, and astronomic rates of population growth have been slowed as AIDS takes its toll throughout the region, with Botswana for example having 1/3 of its population supposedly HIV positive. The continent has not stood still, but progress has not all been positive.

Having collected the keys to my hire car at Cape Town airport, I hesitate in front of the Ford Focus, then dash back into the Avis office. “Just two questions”, I say. “Kilometres or miles?”, “kilometres” is the answer. “Drive on the left, or on the right?”, “left”. They look bemused, but I feel relieved that I know the basics.

Grootbos is a Nature Reserve on the sea about 40km east of Hermanus, itself about 100km east of Cape Town. “Grootbos” means “Big Bush” in Afrikaans, the name of the scrubland that surrounds the area. The owner, an energetic German, has spent a small fortune developing the resort. The centre is a farmhouse with thatched roof, impressive internal timbers, and wavy external walls. It might be called over-designed, but it works. The food is good and the service faultless. The accommodation is in 16 bungalows spread out over the garden, with private terraces and spectacular views over the sea. Ours has two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a sitting room, and a wood fire that we still need as the nights are cold and the days are wet. Michael assumes that his bathroom cannot be finished, in that there are two taps on the shower, one of which sprays water all over the floor. But on closer investigation the part of the shower that he thought was not connected turns out to be a tap for washing feet, and the bathroom if fine; it just has more equipment than he is used to. The views from the room out to the sea are spectacular, and with the changeable weather, we are able to observe rain storms and sunshine at the same time, out at sea.

There is a resident botanist called Nzuzo to show us round the gardens, where anything not indigenous has been removed, and he shows us how the different plants are pollinated, which ones smell, and why. The surrounding Fynbos (“fine bush” or heath) has been left to develop naturally, part of the natural cycle being fire. The most recent one was particularly fierce, but regeneration has been swift and strong. However, the resort lost its conference centre and a couple of other buildings. The damage would have been worse had the fire’s progress not been checked by a large Milkwood forest – one of the largest remaining in Africa apparently – whose sap is so liquid that the trees do not burn, so they act as a natural firebreak. The new conference centre, which is about to open, is very impressive and unashamedly modern (although I’m not sure about the need for a pool right next to the seminar rooms). It’s just the sort of place for someone with a large budget to take a group of 20-30 for an unforgettable getaway.

There is also an entomologist / zoologist, who brings Michael lizards, snakes and spiders for him to admire. Like Michael, he seems quite impervious to the danger. “This is a Baboon spider”, he tells us as he shows us a spider with a body about the size of a bar of soap. I blanch and back off. “Don’t worry, it’s only the 4th most poisonous spider in South Africa”, he says, stroking its back. He reminds me of the character Hagrid in Harry Potter and his collection of venomous and aggressive creatures. I wonder whether he has a pet called Fang.

The resort has a number of community projects, including a horticultural school and a kitchen garden. The school teaches 12 under-privileged local teenagers each year the basics of botany, how to identify plants, as well as how to look after them. Afterwards they find jobs as gardeners, farmers or nature guides and the thoughtful and knowledgeable Nzuzo who shows us round the Fynbos and the gardens was one of the first graduates. The scheme is a great success with 10 times more applicants than places. So now a football pitch to improve the skills of local children and to encourage teamwork, as well as a life-skills college for women, are planned. Each of these is sustainable, in that the revenue from running the projects offsets the outgoings, although the setup is paid for by sponsorship. So the school sells plants and earns a finder’s fee for placing its graduates, and the football club will let out the grounds to other teams and for tournaments.

The whole resort has a positive, ecologically aware, environmentally and community enhancing approach, all within the framework of making money. It’s enough to make one proud of being a capitalist.

Talking of capitalism, the next stop is the wine district of Stellenbosch, one of South Africa’s main wine growing regions, and a short drive from Cape Town.

Located on the Silk Road – which stretches from the Gulf to the Yangtze – Urumqi (pronounced Oo-Roo-Um-Chee) is a melting pot of cultures and peoples. One of the local dialects is Uyghur and is written in Arabic. Another is Russian. So the signs are not just in the usual Chinese & English, but often in Arabic and Cyrillic too. Historically this is a Muslim city, but the influx of Han (ethnically pure) Chinese in recent years has, as in Tibet, put the locals in a minority.

The food is Chinese, but reflects the ethnic mix and Muslim culture. Bacon for breakfast is made of beef for example rather than pork; many of the main dishes are made of lamb; there’s Russian Borscht on offer; Nan bread as found in Indian restaurants is made on every street corner; alcohol is available but not pushed and the locally grown fruit is served at every meal. I mentioned before that this should really be two or three timezones further west than it is, as China has a single timezone. So dawn is at 08:00 for example. The locals get round this in a very pragmatic way – they just shift everything by two hours. So people work from 10:00 to 19:00 for example, lunch is at 14:00 and the night market, which is the best place to go for dinner, opens at 21:00.

I am staying at a 5 Star Hotel called the Silver Star at a cost of RMB600 per night, which is not that cheap considering similar quality can be found in for example Germany at that price. It has 25 floors and is quite well equipped, with a bank, shops, swimming pool as well as conference centre. The room is a touch dingy, with inadequate lighting, smelly drains and connecting walls to the rooms on either side that have the acoustic dampening quality of Bible paper. There’s broadband, but it is so slow that it had to left on all night to download a 2MB email. The laundry service is of the usual high quality; each item comes back beautifully and individually wrapped in tissue-paper, held together by a sticker, with the hotel’s seal. The slight resistance to alcohol extends to the mini-bar, which has no beer or alcohol of any sort, but does have condoms, with the great strapline: “Be Love, Do Love”. The loo-paper holder brand is also noteworthy; it’s “Bum Han”. Han of course means Pure Chinese, so perhaps it could be literally translated as “Pure Chinese Bum”. On that limitless subject of Chinglish, I saw a couple of signs at a picturesque lake (more about the lake later), both promoting a boat ride to the other side. “Take the seat yacht and go from this” is perhaps clearer (although not a great ad for the lake) than the more confusing “The pleasure-boat rides the seat place”. Poor translation is not a function of development; after all in Nagasaki last weekend the warning label on my hairdryer said “Please do not use for the other purpose”. The mind boggles. Anyway, I digress; back to Urumqi.

Urumqi is in the Guinness Book of Records as the city in the world furthest away from any sea – about 2,500km. It’s the capital of China’s largest province, Xinjiang, which is mostly desert. There are mountains to the north near Russia, and a river running across the state, going nowhere. In its recent history, the province was the first conquered by Mao, who persuaded the local warlord to join the fledgling Red Army in about 1945. It became a regional military stronghold, and there was an influx of Chinese to build the Red Army, and who then settled.

Apart from its military and trading roots, Xinjiang’s economy is mostly agriculture focusing on fruit – especially grapes – and cotton. The conference is being held there because my Chinese host spent 5 years in the province in his youth, and developed an affection for it. On the first night we are taken to an enormous restaurant with stage show, including dancers, tightrope walkers, and singing. The stage backdrops show different mountain and river scenes. The dancing reflects the cultural soup: there are stretchy men doing Cossack-style Russian dancing; long-haired Kazak girls dancing with four bowls perched on their heads, the top one with water in it; and some Uyghur songs that many sang along to. I am told that the Han Chinese are shy people, so they like to have “ethnic minorities” to liven the party up. I’ve never been called an ethnic minority before, but it’s probably good for me! So an American and I are picked to go up on stage and help with the dancing. It’s bait and switch, though, as the luscious girl who persuades me to join her on stage passes me over to a rather muscular Russian man, who makes me copy his every dance-move. And move he certainly can. I’m still stiff from the experience, writing this two days later.

There is an outing to Tianchi (Heavenly) Lake, so called because it’s where the gods are supposed to come for their holidays… It’s at 2,000m altitude, and the locals live in round brightly coloured huts called yurts. Around the lake there are racks of local traditional costumes, which you can put on and be photographed with the lake as a backdrop. I think we should try that in Annecy: berets and striped crew-necked shirts all round.

After Tianchi we drive another few hours to the local development zone, where we look around an extraordinarily large cotton mill and spinning factory, all automated; a water conservation project; local military history museum (perhaps best described as “somewhat biased”, I can’t quite bring myself to describe the victory of the Communists in 1949 as “liberation”), culminating in a lecture from the local development chief (lots of graphs pointing upwards, not sure whether these measure sales, profits or pollution) and a lunch, complete with Karaoke. Fortunately the resident ethnic minority (me) managed to wriggle out of providing that entertainment. It’s all reminiscent of communist-era propaganda, but I suspect here there is real substance behind the claims. But why anyone would want to locate their business in this particular business zone, 2 hours from the local airport and 4 days by train from Shanghai is beyond me.

It’s been a great experience, but now for the longest part of my journey: Urumqi -> Beijing -> Hong Kong -> Johannesburg -> Cape Town -> Hermanus.

It’s 6:30 in the morning as I walk to Nagasaki station to take the Limited Express to Fukuoka. The train is surprisingly busy for a Sunday morning, and we speed through some gorgeous countryside; mostly mountains on the left and sea on the right (logically, with Nagasaki being in the extreme South-West and Fukuoka in the North-West I rather expected these to be the other way around). I am sitting on the right (sea) side, and there are a number of fishing villages and small ports. The beaches are all a bit grubby and, other than a single sandy beach, not enticing for a swim. As Nagasaki is holding its annual Jellyfish festival, perhaps that’s just as well.

Breakfast bought at the station and eaten on board the train is the Japanese version of the sandwich: Mother’s Pride type ultra-white bread, unrecognizable contents, and shrink-wrapped in clever plastic that opens itself at the right spot however you pull at it. It’s washed down with peach juice. It does look more edible than most Japanese food, I suppose, and it slips down.

Two hours later, we pull into Hakata station; Fukuoka airport is another 10 minutes away by metro. I’m glad I’ve allowed an extra hour, because buying the metro ticket and taking the bus between terminals take rather longer than expected.

I have no idea why Cathay runs a flight from Fukuoka to Hong Kong. There are 6 people in Business Class, and Economy is not full either. But they serve some excellent Burgundy, so I’m not complaining. We stop briefly in Taipei to refuel and take on more passengers, where there is an intense tropical storm. The Captain warns us that he will be doing a “full-power take-off”, which the more fragile of us might find disturbing. The Airbus 330 certainly picks up speed at quite a lick, and with a very short run we take off and power our way successfully into the stormy sky without any screams from the passengers.

In Hong Kong the weather is beautiful and for once, the pollution levels are low and the view good. It’s late afternoon already and there’s not much time for anything. I buy a wallet to replace mine which has fallen apart and in true HK shopping style get superb pricing, an additional discount and a free gift. What a great place this is for shopping.

It’s another early start on Monday morning. Train to the airport, and plane to Guangzhou, which is just over the border in the manufacturing heartland of mainland China. From there I change terminals with the help of a keen teenager who carries my bags and chatters away in rudimentary English as he shows me the way, and is delighted with his 60p tip, although clearly wouldn’t have refused more. The airport is new and impressive, reminding me a bit of San Francisco with smooth tiled floors and metal frame dome roof. I have time for lunch in a café near the gate, and try and order something as safe as possible. “Shanghai noodles” sounds good. It turns out to be boiled fatty belly of pork, swimming in an unappetizing brown soup, with some unidentifiable vegetable with a brownish tinge. But it’s delicious. The green tea arrives in a glass mug and rather like a larva lamp has about half its leaves floating at the top and half at the bottom, with some going down or up at any one time. I have to drink it by using my teeth as a sieve, and spend much of the 5-hour flight to Urumqi picking the bits out of my mouth.

Urumqi must be bigger than I expected, as this is a wide-bodied aircraft and I’m in row 41. It’s very full, and I’m the only non-Chinese as far as I can see. The approach is all desert, with some of it marked out in perhaps 500m x 500m squares, but with nothing inside most of them. Is it for later construction, perhaps? There is quite a lot of strip mining for what looks like construction material. The airport is communist-era compared with the splendour of Guangzhou, with dingy lighting and low ceilings. The advertisement for the local Sheraton looks out of place. I have trouble finding the person picking me up and have to phone round to find out where they are, or if they are there at all. It turns out the sign for me is written in Chinese, so no wonder I couldn’t find them. We eventually meet up, although she can’t speak any English, other than the words “taxi” and “hotel”.

Riding to the hotel in a taxi is the usual dodgem-style Chinese driving as we overtake on the inside, weave in and out, and hoot at everything that moves. It’s such a surprise that we not only don’t hit anyone, but also the seatbelts have clearly never been used.

Urumqi is an oasis, and the surroundings are a mixture of dust, sand and greenery. There’s some new construction, and lots of what look like run-down factories but which I suspect are apartment blocks. A lot of the writing is in Cyrillic (Russian), which is perhaps the way the local dialect is written. The oasis makes the region quite agricultural, and there’s oil too. We pass a hillside with houses built into the side of the hill, but I’m not sure whether I’m observing ethnicity or poverty. The timezone here is the same as Beijing, even though we are geographically about 3 zones west, being quite close to Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and even Pakistan, so the sunrise / sunset is out of kilter.

I’m here for a conference, and hopefully to do some sightseeing. I will write some more as things unfold…

It’s been a bit of a blur since leaving San Jose after little more than 36 hours in that great place. Two of the highpoints were lunch at Mings with Paul (who is settling in well to his new home here) and dinner at The Blue Algarve Club discussing Bentleys (the cars) and salmon (the fish) with David, Betsy and David's niece. Another highpoint of course was Avis deciding to upgrade me to a Ford Mustang (“sorry Sir, you requested a Ford Focus with stick-shift, but we only have Automatics here [for “here” read the whole of the US], would you accept a Mustang instead? It is automatic though”). It’s a good head-turner, sounds great and goes like stink, but otherwise it’s a bit of a disappointment, especially the suspension and handling.

American Airlines is apparently stopping their service between San Jose and Tokyo Narita, and I can see why. The rather oddly designed (too much legroom, but not enough reclining seats made out of 80’s over-sombre blue leather) 777 is barely half-full, although I do meet an old Phoenix colleague on board.

Narita airport is, as I’ve observed before, rather a long way from Tokyo. I have 3 hours until my next flight, which leaves from Haneda, Tokyo’s national airport. The only trouble is that, according to the train timetable, it takes 2 hours to switch airports and trains are not frequent. Fortunately the omnipresent “Friendly Airport Limousine” steps up and offers me a bus transit which leaves every 10 minutes and takes just 70 minutes. The hostess bows to us as the coach pulls away exactly on time, driven by a man wearing white gloves. This is definitely Japan.

Haneda airport has a shopping mall above the terminal, which is very convenient for my couple of hours until the flight to Nagasaki. I drink tea and eat pasta for err… is it dinner? Not sure. I get another typical Japanese mannerism on leaving the restaurant, with all the waitresses and waiters chanting something unintelligible (“Goodbye”, perhaps?) as I leave. It’s almost in harmony.

The flight to Nagasaki is absolutely packed and I seem to be sitting next to a sumo wrestler. As he oozes over onto my adjacent seat, it’s getting very tight for those of us who weigh less than 200kg. If I had a tape measure, I would work out how much, or rather how little space I have. It’s inhumane and probably contravenes EU guidelines on veal rearing in Holland.

I believed from the map I downloaded from the Internet that Nagasaki airport is right next to the city, but it is a long taxi ride that exhausts me and most of the Yen cash I am carrying. The hotel, a Best Western, is quite grand and has some nice touches including free (yes, free) mini-bar and broadband.

Nagasaki is on the south west-most tip of Japan. Discovered by Portuguese and Dutch traders in C15, and still with a Dutch garden is one part of the town, the town nestles in a valley surrounded by mountains, leading to a port at the estuary.

The next day, Saturday, Dan is on time to meet me in the hotel lobby. We head out to the Ropeway, a cable car that leads up to the mountains that surround Nagasaki. It has spectacular views of the town, port and surrounding mountains. Dan takes a photo of me next to the cable car operator, who is dressed in a rather fetching orange striped uniform. She is half surprised, half shy, but smiles anyway. There are photos at the top to compare the view with earlier years, and we spot a bridge which clearly has only recently been built, leading to an extension to the port on the other bank.

The architecture of Nagasaki is typical post-war Japanese, with many of the buildings looking rather like the inside of a cheap bathroom, having white tiles, or perhaps white bricks, on the walls. Somehow every building seems to lack a little something, with some combination of rusty window frames, dirty windows, a ramshackle outhouse or dirty walls. Rather like Italy, it could do with a good lick of paint, but there’s no denying the underlying charm.

Our next stop is Dan’s flat which is about 20 minutes north of the centre, and we take the tram. It’s a fixed price of ¥100 – about 50p – irrespective of the distance traveled. The trams are similar to those found in many European countries and, other than the Kanji symbols on the outside, the trams would look at home in Zurich or Vienna. On the way to the flat we pass one of Dan’s 3 schools where he is teaching, and we are invited to watch a basketball tournament. We are cheering for the right team (called rather quaintly the “Team of Boys”), but watch them get slaughtered 21-8. Dan is quite the centre of attention, with pupils trying out their English on him, mostly “do you like basketball?” and “do you play basketball?”. I think Dan may need to work on expanding their vocabulary a bit. Outside the school the various teams each have their own large mat, where they change, eat, drink and wait for their turn to play. It’s like a huge picnic outing.

Dan’s flat is on the 1st floor of a relatively modern block. He has his own front door, leading to an outside walkway. On the other side of the flat is a narrow balcony about the width of a hanger and, with an unexciting view of the opposite building’s car park, I’m sure its primary use is to dry clothes. The flat is laid out like a hotel room, with a bathroom on the left and a miniscule kitchen on the right, where in a hotel you might normally have clothes storage. It’s so small that the fridge blocks the door into the main room. The living room / bedroom is covered in Tatami mats, and Dan in good Japanese fashion stores his bed in the cupboard during the day. At the balcony end, there’s a sofa, TV (with 5 Japanese channels only, but a Playstation) and a small table. It’s small but functional, and Dan is quite house-proud. Once his washing machine arrives and the broadband is connected, he’ll be in good shape. After spending rather longer than we intended fixing his light (not helped by taking too much of it apart and struggling to put it back together), we leave for the Peace Park.

The monument to the Atom Bomb consists of a memorial, park and museum. The memorial is a marble pillar at the bomb’s epicentre, with circular pavestones depicting the radiation, and the reconstruction of part of the nearby catholic cathedral that amazingly was not completely destroyed. Nagasaki was not the first choice of target (the other was obscured by smoke) and the bomber mistook a munitions factory in the suburbs for the town centre. The surrounding mountains also cushioned the effect somewhat, so ‘only’ 75,000 people died, about half that in Hiroshima, where the bomb was within metres of the intended target. The museum is less political than the one in Hiroshima, focusing on the human suffering that was caused. It’s a necessary but pretty gruesome place to visit and in my view should be compulsory viewing for any head of state or senior politician. The park on the other hand is delightful, with a large statue depicting peace, a fountain in the shape of a dove, and some statues from countries that were at the time probably trying to curry favour with the Japanese, but have since disappeared or had their borders radically redrawn: USSR, GDR and Yugoslavia.

We head back to the hotel for a mammoth 2½ hour Skype session for Dan, who has barely spoken to his parents and Katie since arriving in Japan. Afterwards, we go to the seafront, where there are a number of restaurants, which Dan is eating his way along. The Mexican restaurant gets the thumbs-down, and we choose instead one that is called a Coffee Shop, but is really an Italian restaurant. We eat Japanese lasagna, made with rice instead of pasta; Fettuccine Carbonara, which includes some of those delicious Japanese mushrooms in the recipe, garlic bread and err… Spring Rolls. Odd perhaps, but it hits the spot.

Dan is having a great time in Japan, has made many friends (called A.L.T.s whatever that means). He even claims to be enjoying the food. I leave him to go the Crazy Horse bar to meet the others and head back to the hotel for a relatively early night before another long journey tomorrow.

The airline industry is not used to the new security regulations. One of those seemingly-infinite British Airways announcements has the old message asking people to put their large wheelie bags in sideways in the overhead locker, to allow space for others. But as we are now restricted to a single bag little larger than a toaster, there’s enough room on board the 747 for anything and everything, even the odd kitchen sink. The announcement “If you have two bags, please put one under the seat in front of you” must be a wind-up.

There is still the odd poor soul wandering around the airport with his passport, ticket and wallet in a see-through plastic bag. It reminds me of France at the start of the Single Market in 1992. One of the many changes then was for France to give up its yellow headlights, which had been on all cars since the 2nd World War, as part of an EU product standardization drive. Unfortunately no-one told the determined British tourist who, with a whimsical view of France involving bicycles, baguettes and berets illuminated by yellow headlights, continued to paint his headlights yellow well into the late 90s, when the French decided they’d had enough and started issuing on-the-spot fines for cars with yellow headlights. Similarly in today’s world, I wonder whether we will still see the passport-in-a-plastic-bag phenomenon in 5 years’ time. It’s perhaps not fair to imply that the English have a monopoly of being feckless tourists, as I have been asked at times by French visitors in London “mais, ou est le brouillard?” (where is the fog?), and never been completely convinced that they were joking.

The search for liquids, gels, lighters and other newly-banned substances at Heathrow is still not effective, evidenced by a passenger at the gate meekly handing over his lighter just before boarding, saying he’d “forgotten” he had it. The current measures may be excessive, but it would be nice if they were at least universally enforced, or perhaps enforceable.

Washington is the first stop on my Round The World tour, through the USA, Japan, China and South Africa. It’s a total of 31,500 miles of flying and by the time I land in Washington, I’ve done just 11.6%. The longest sector is Hong Kong to Johannesburg (6,634 miles) and the shortest at just 74 miles is Hong Kong to Guangzhou, or Canton as it used to be called. I’m away 22 days less 4 hours, so my average speed during this trip will be almost exactly 60 mph. Pre-South Africa my average speed is over 85 mph, which seems right as that is work-time. I will have lost a day by going the wrong way over the International Date Line, and according to Einstein’s concept of personal time, I will be very slightly older (or younger, I’m not quite sure) than I would have been had I stayed at home.

I’ve spent so long with Barry’s patient and professional help planning this trip, that I’m convinced nothing can go wrong. I’m wrong: in fact it starts to go awry as soon as I land. Both the place I am staying and the meeting I’ve come for are in the Ritz Carlton, but it becomes clear that there are three Ritz Carltons in DC, and I’m not staying in the right one. Having ironed that out, and with the meeting successfully accomplished, it’s off to Dulles airport for the next leg. There I have to check in my bag, because I’m carrying toothpaste, a newly banned substance (I can’t help thinking: what are all these others with their wheelie bags doing about cleaning their teeth?). After saying goodbye to my bag (I hate checking bags in), I’m told that the flight to Chicago is delayed, so that I will miss my connection to San Jose. I can reroute, but my bags will not arrive until the next day. After some gnashing of teeth and a promise that the check-in clerk will be sent off to re-education camp (I have after all just finished a book on Mao, and it’s given me the idea) American Airlines send off a team to interrupt my bag in the bowels of the airport, and reticket it on my new route via Dallas Fort Worth to San Jose. They claim success; time will tell.

Dallas is a seriously big airport. I have a gate change from C2 to D28, which involves a 15 minute train ride. Heathrow may be proud of being the World’s Biggest Airport, but in order to stay the right side of the truth, they have had to add the word “International” before “Airport”. Dulles feels like Heathrow spread over a space not much smaller than Surrey and is apparently the airport with the most passengers and flights in the world. Perhaps one day that prize will be earned by Shanghai or Beijing, but today it’s the republican-voting oil tycoons of Texas who are in the top slot. It’s also hot, which makes a change from Washington, where it was unseasonably cool and raining.

Next stop: Silicon Valley.

I have only twice felt this way before: once after the Californian earthquake in 1989 and the other in 1998 when I just avoided taking the Swissair flight from New York to Geneva that ended up crashing into the sea. It’s a feeling of loss of basic security; that normal things – like the ground staying still – can no longer be taken for granted, and that the status quo has in some way been fundamentally disrupted. Like Yogi Berra once said, I would really like the status quo to remain just the way it is.

This time, it’s the announcement that terrorists have been arrested in London.

It doesn’t help that the second I turn the television on in my hotel in Washington, after getting off the BA flight from London, coincides with the very moment CNN announces that the terrorists were targeting British Airways flights from London to Washington; nor that one of my fellow passengers looked like Osama bin Laden complete with beard and carefully studied relaxed look. My left brain was thinking “he’s got a bomb!” while my right was lecturing me on racism and arguing that he was probably just a journalist, political lobbyist, or perhaps even a Cisco salesman.

But after the spell of disaster-itis fades, the whole incident looks over-blown. The group of terrorists who have been arrested were apparently planning to blow up a series of planes using explosives disguised as household items such as toothpaste. The predictable reaction has been to ban everything as a carry-on, other than passport, wallet and ticket. Colleague James, who is in New York, decides to head back to London. With the current carry-on restrictions he cannot take his laptop, or even a book. He complains about being stuck in a departure lounge for 3 hours with only his passport to read. It’s not encouraging.

There’s lots of debate on American television, including a rather earnest man with the title “Security Expert” saying that the recent easing of carry-on restrictions had created a security hole. It turns out that he is referring to knives, where pre-9/11 it was possible to take almost any knife on board. The 9/11 attackers had Stanley knives (box cutters in American), that were used to slit the throats of passengers and crew. Afterwards, knives were banned to the point of even the table knife and fork on board being made of plastic. The easing that the Expert was referring to was the recent decision to allow nail trimmers (without nail files), which have no blade to speak off, and open by no more than 2mm. I can’t imagine how that could possibly cause a security threat, other than perhaps to threaten the Captain with a manicure.

I wonder whether I can get out of Washington; perhaps it would be better to go on to California rather than back home to France? My instinct is to go on, away from the chaos of Heathrow, but eventually I decide to head back, and check in for the next available flight for London. Transiting in Heathrow, the book I have bought airside in Washington is removed as a “security risk”. Like the nail clippers, perhaps I could bash the Captain over the head with a John Grisham paperback. Even if the airlines disallowed all luggage, made us wear Orange jumpsuits, handcuffed us to the seats, life would not only not be completely safe (anyone fancy swallowing a condom of Semtex?), it would definitely be miserable.

On board, there is a great article from the Daily Telegraph (which is not usually my favourite paper): “Over-reacting to terrorism is no way to defeat it”. It argues for a measured and proportionate response to a small group of poorly equipped fanatics. It reminds me of the book “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, where an immense war machine is sent to battle another world, only to be eaten by a small dog, because they got the scale wrong.

A colleague of mine used to describe bad crisis management as “Left side of ship”. To restore balance, too much is done that then causes a worse imbalance. It’s not hard to see the over-reaction created by this incident is a “Left side of ship”. The inconsistency of the security measures is staggering: you can take flammable Duty Free spirits on board, with matches, but no water; carry-on bags are banned, checked-in bags are only hand searched in the US (whereas in other countries they are just X-rayed) while freight is not checked at all. Knives are banned, but a broken glass or bottle is not. The airports have tight security, while train stations and the Channel Tunnel barely any or none. I could go on.

Politically, it’s a disaster too. Scenes in London of screaming sirens, roped-off areas, interminable queues and swarms of policeman are beamed around the world. They provide valuable PR to the terrorists, presenting Britain as a fractured society, with all or most of the suspects being British nationals. It is bound to make travellers jumpy, and copy-cat terrorists to plan with increased vigour. The terrorists may not have killed anyone this time, but they have had a resounding success.

In a queue in London, I start talking to a man about his view on the situation, the possible attack and his feeling towards the terrorists. “Fuck 'em” is his reaction; “I’m not going to let them change the way I run my life”.

What a shame the politicians and the authorities did not react with the same old-fashioned British phlegm.

This is sold as an easy week. “Fly to Munich, pick up 11 bankers drafts and the contract, drive to Stuttgart, sign the contract, hand over the bankers drafts, come home; that’s all”. I’m suspicious though. “What are you going to be doing?” I ask. “Christmas shopping” is the reply. Now I have to admit I don’t particularly enjoy Christmas shopping, but I have a feeling that perhaps I am not getting the better deal. “Nothing can go wrong; we’ve been working at this for weeks and everything’s sorted.” Then a slight hesitation and change of voice: “I suppose if you don’t think you can manage, I could come too”. I decline the invitation; if it’s really that simple I couldn’t live with the thought of the Christmas shopping taking place at Stuttgart airport Duty Free. In a final attempt at rebellion, I ask for a set of written instructions for the week. On a single sheet of A4, it repeats the basic “pick up drafts, sign agreement, hand over drafts”. There’s even a map to the bank, although as it has fitted most of Munich onto a picture little bigger than a postage stamp, I’m not going to rely on it.

The only consolation comes from Sophia, who has managed to upgrade me from the company-standard 3 door Opel Corsa 1.1 automatic Diesel ‘Teen trim’, to a Mercedes. She gets it.

Munich airport is a triumph of engineering over ergonomics. They’ve replaced inefficient signs – you know the ones: with words on – with just letters. You arrive in zone ‘B’ for example, can eat in zone ‘R’ before getting a taxi in zone ‘F’. That sort of thing. The zones are connected by moving walkways through anonymous but identical-looking (and no doubt very efficient) corridors. In reality it is like a steel and glass version of the Hampton Court maze, but without the kind guide who lets you out when you give up looking for the exit. But where exactly does one go to pick up the Sixt car? At one point I spot a Christmas tree – perhaps I should settle in for the season there?

The car at least has satellite navigation, and the rather stern woman who guides me around in German and I develop something of a relationship over the week. If things are going well, I get messages such as “in 100m, nacht rechts abbiegen” (turn right in 100m) but if I take a wrong turning, I get “falls möglich, bitte wenden” (turn round, you dork), in a colder, and rather sterner voice.

Dresdner Bank’s main office in Munich is in a grand square with expensive hotels, cars and… nowhere to park. The Pay and Display street parking is full in all directions. “Bitte wenden!” I keep hearing. “Shut up and find me somewhere to park!” I reply. At last I find a space next to woman draped in mink who is stepping out of a Porsche Cayenne, but she is parking on the pavement. “Is one allowed to park here?” I ask. “I have no idea, probably not”, she replies. A quick glance confirms that most of the cars in the road are parked illegally. What’s happening to Munich – it’s not turning into Paris, is it?

It starts to snow as I get out of the car and walk to the bank, which has one particularly distinguishing feature: no entrance. No front door, nor gate, reception, doorman… nothing. On one side is the Norwegian embassy (which has a very nice front door), and on the other is a passageway. Giving up, and now covered in snow, I call the bank manager who lets me in (the entrance is shared with the embassy).

Franz Moosmayr is completely unfazed about the fact he is holding 1.6M € of our money, waves aside my passport ID (“I’ve already checked you out”) and ushers me into a meeting room. There he lands his bombshell: Germany does not have the concept of banker’s drafts. How do you pay for something between strangers then, like a second-hand car for example? “Cash”, he replies, “German people like cash”. “Well”, I reply (thinking of David Everett at this point), “do you have 1.6M € in cash on you?”; “No”. We agree with the sellers to change the payments to wire transfers and after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, the payments are set up.

Our German lawyer’s office is in a very swish square in central Munich, surrounded by over-priced shops. It would probably be easier here to buy a diamond than a loaf of bread, and the nearest car dealership sells Aston Martins rather than Volkswagens. I manage to park outside, but I’m the only one who buys a parking ticket. Mind you, no-one is going to see the ticket as it’s now snowing quite heavily.

Second bombshell: the entire structure might be illegal. SVB requires Actesys to set up a deposit account before it will issue the Letters of Credit and the lawyers think this might be illegal. Top legal brains beaver away for a while and the opinion comes back with a green light. Armed with a contract rather larger than a shoebox, and two files of papers to be signed, I head off to Eningen. The square outside the office looks spectacular. The snow reflects the Christmas lights and it all looks very festive. The Band Aid song “Do they know it’s Christmas” comes into my mind. No I don’t! I think to myself, trudging through the snow towards the car.

I’ve cut it a bit fine to get to the hotel before it closes at midnight. Fraulein Navigation tells me that there is a 13km traffic jam ahead, that she doesn’t expect us to arrive until 00:45, and would I like a detour? OK I say, and off we go, leaving the autobahn for ever smaller roads. The car is sliding around, and the roads become harder to make out in the snow. I miss a turning because of a complete white-out and decide that Fraulein Navigation must be over-ruled and I head back to the Autobahn. “Bitte wenden!” she pleads, but once I’m back on the motorway (where there is no sign of any traffic jam at all), she goes into a sulk and refuses to speak to me. I try reentering the destination, even pressing the reset button, but all to no avail. The only thing she does is to increase the estimated arrival time by 5 min. In fact I arrive at 23:30, in enough time even to have something to eat.

The next two days are not fun, comprising mostly a set of fairly fruitless discussions, sometimes heated. Jill has arrived to provide induction training to the staff and I worry about the impression on our soon-to-be-new colleagues of the contrast between her glowing presentations in one room and our heated discussions in another. The most impressive thing during this time is that Actesys applies to open an account with SVB in California, transfers money from Germany to California and SVB raises 3 letters of credit – all in less than 24 hours or, in comparison, 4 times faster than it takes to clear a cheque in the UK. Very impressive.

On Wednesday evening I have dinner with goddaughter Kim, who is studying Chinese at Tübingen University. She shares a flat with a Chinese girl and together they produced an authentic Chinese meal, washed down by tea and we have a lively discussion on China and regional politics. Kim’s friend is studying Japanese, which at face value at least does not feel like a logical choice for a Chinese person to study in Tübingen. But it was a delightful evening away from the acquisition hubbub.

Finally, all the signatures are in place, the money is transferred, and has arrived. All we are now waiting for are the L/C originals and their confirmation: the deal is unstoppable. Thomas and I have a deal post-mortem at a local Italian restaurant and, other than a security queue at Stuttgart airport that stretches so far that the end is outside the terminal on the road outside, the rest of the week is uneventful.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, together with your families and loved ones. We will have an exciting 2006 as newly-merged companies with many more possibilities together than we could have managed alone. It was worth the pain of the acquisition transaction to get to this point.

Our last stop is the infamous city of Hiroshima. Pre-August 1945, it was a castle town turned military garrison, but now there’s not much to see other than the Peace Park, which is what the various Atom Bomb memorials and museums are collectively called. (It may not be strictly true to say there’s not much else to see, as apparently the old castle has been lovingly rebuilt, but we only have a few hours in Hiroshima so can’t confirm that).

The bomb’s epicentre was within a few metres of the target: instead of exploding above a bridge in the middle of the city, it was a nearby government urban planning building. Within 2 km everything was destroyed; within 4 km nearly everything. 92% of the buildings in the centre were destroyed. 140,000 people died immediately or within a few days – 40% of the population – the majority from the initial blast, the rest from the firestorm which raged for 3 days afterwards, and from the radiation carried by the black rain which fell a few hours after the bomb hit. The temperatures generated by the bomb were so high that steel girders of bridges and glass that was not smashed melted, evidenced for example by distorted bottles.

The building at the epicenter eerily survived, because the pressure of the bomb worked differently at that point. Its burnt-out frame has been preserved as the main monument. The museum contains a balanced report of what happened, supported by personal accounts, collections of clothes and other belongings from victims, before-and-after photos, just-after photos, and a fairly cold analysis of how nuclear bombs work and what happens when one explodes. It’s quite a disturbing place to visit.

I learnt a number of things here about Japan, the war and the A-bomb that I didn’t know:
- As a child I was taught that the bomb was dropped because doing so would cost fewer lives overall than an invasion. In fact, the bomb was used because the allies needed to accelerate the end of the war with Japan. Russia had agreed to declare war on Japan 6 months after the defeat of Germany, and that would have led to Russia gaining some say over, or territory in, post-war Japan
- There was a shortlist of targets (including Kyoto of all places) but Hiroshima was chosen because it was believed there were no allied prisoners of war there
- Controversially, there was no warning. Japan had not accepted the earlier Potsdam declaration – which preceded the bomb and came closest to a warning by requiring Japan to surrender unconditionally – because the declaration did not provide guarantees relating to the continuation of the rule of the emperor
- Conventional bombing on Hiroshima was stopped for some time beforehand, so that the precise effects of the A-bomb could be better studied and understood. To the Americans, this was very much a scientific experiment
- Only about 10% of the uranium in the bomb underwent fission
- Hiroshima was completely rebuilt after the war, with even the old road layout being replaced with a new grid system
- The British were the occupiers in post-war Hiroshima, and ran such strict censorship that residents did not really understand what had happened until independence in the 1950s
- China and Japan have well publicized differences over historical facts, and there’s a good example here. In the section on military contextual history, the “capture” of Nanjing (described widely elsewhere of course as the Rape of Nanking) includes the report of the killing of several civilians by the Japanese army. “There are differences about the actual numbers killed; China claims 300,000”, the exhibit says
- The post-war Japanese political system is based on the British model, with a parliamentary democracy and the emperor as a relatively toothless head of state
- 1M people a year visit the Peace Museum, fewer than 10% of whom are foreigners

It’s a sobering end to an interesting trip. We have lunch at a nearby Japanese restaurant with an American flavour: there’s baseball showing on TV screens, the food is definitely ho-hum, but rather charmingly a harpist comes in to play. Baseball and harp makes for a bizarre combination, but it in some way it reflects today’s Japan: a successful mix of the old (in the form of their customs and traditions) and the new.

Some takeaways on Japan: It’s been easier traveling around Japan than we expected. More people speak English than we anticipated and with a combination of gestures, pictures and languages, we were able to get by pretty much in any situation. We would certainly now be prepared to go anywhere in the country and attempt pretty much anything. The people are very helpful, welcoming and service-orientated, even if they can ignore you completely in certain situations. Japan has a well-known chronic traffic problem which seems easy to solve: take half the taxis away (at any one time, seemingly 80% of the traffic comprises taxis, most of which are for hire); it’s a very expensive place (think London plus…) but unlike in Britain, it doesn’t get much cheaper away from the capital. Japan is a great and fascinating country but overall we preferred China (Beijing slightly over Tokyo; Shanghai much more than Hiroshima; Jiuzhaigou over Miyajima; but Kyoto over Xi’an), probably because we are catching China at such an exciting time in its history. So: China 3, Japan 1.

I have written these postcards to record in my own words the section of George’s round-the-world trip that I was fortunate enough to share with him. He’s now off on his own to Peru. As the Kyoto taxi driver said after playing the British National Anthem to us so loudly on his CD player a few days ago: thank you for listening.

Voted the 3rd most scenic view in Japan, the shrine on the island of Miyajima is built on a sandbank looking towards Hiroshima, and at high tide appears to be floating in the water. Every couple of hundred years the sea wins and the shrine has to be rebuilt; this one is about 150 years old (it was too far away to be affected by the A-bomb) and still looks and feels pretty solid (you can walk up to it at low tide).

Since the shrine was built in C12, the island has been deemed sacred and it became an extreme nature reserve. By “extreme” I mean there are some unusual rules: no trees can be felled, no ground cleared and no animals harmed. You are even not allowed to give birth here, nor die (I’m not sure how one guarantees that). One sign says “You may only leave your footprints here, take everything else with you”. Deer roam the High Street (in reality a tiny lane of mostly tourist shops) at will, completely ignoring humans, even if you stroke them. Elsewhere there are monkeys, lizards, snakes – all pretty tame – and a type of cricket about the size of half a boiled egg that makes a deafening noise trying to attract a mate. No wonder he keeps going, she’s clearly as put off as we are.

We are still staying Japanese style, in a 1970s built hotel, but it’s grander than the last one: we have a suite. The regime is similar to the last one, except we all eat downstairs (believe it or not all in our Yukata dressing gowns provided by the hotel) and there is a communal bath. Anyone hoping for one of those nude mixed German/Scandinavian-style saunas will be in for a disappointment: there are separate facilities for men and women. Furnished with a towel about the size of an A4 piece of paper, you sit at a wash-station on an upside-down plastic washing-up bowl. There’s soap etc, as well as a hand-shower – everything you need to get clean. Once clean (and with your piece of A4 strategically positioned) you head to the bath, the idea being that only clean bodies are allowed in. The bath is a cross between a Jacuzzi and a swimming pool (the water is hot, but it’s big enough to swim in or just to sit at the side), but most people are sitting rather than moving around. There’s another, smaller bath outside. We’re thoroughly confused by the communal bath’s opening hours as the receptionist (rather appropriately named “Oh”) tells us that it is open 24 hours a day, but is closed right now. In fact, it is open so often – so she claims – that it is really open 27 hours a day. “How many hours a day are there in Japan?” I ask. “24, but bath open 27 hours” Oh replies, proudly. The signs to the bath are not for the feint-hearted either, as they variously point to “Public Bath”, “Pubric Bath” and “Pubic Bath”.

We have a great example of Japanese service here: we ask Oh whether there is a laundry service and she replies “I will arrange it”. This in fact involves her taking our clothes home and washing them herself. There’s no charge – it’s “a pleasure” she says. We feel humbled.

The restaurant is worth a special mention: if le Guide Michelin had made it this far, this place would be up for a rosette. Dinner consists of perhaps 8 exquisitely prepared and presented separate dishes. Presentation of the sashimi is a work of art with the body of the fish set in ice, with the sashimi on top, and a shell gushing out smoke from liquid nitrogen (for effect only). One of the courses consists of a barbequed fish, which arrives on its own table-top portable barbeque. We are told to watch it cook itself for exactly 5 minutes before eating. Another is duck braised in a soy-based sauce, again over a naked flame, but this time the ‘saucepan’ is made of paper. The paper does not catch fire because of the sauce. It’s all quite magical. There is a small five-fingered leaf that appears as decoration on every dish (looks like marijuana, but isn’t), and is widely painted on buildings and even the streets. It’s the leaf from a local tree called Minojini, and is supposed to bring good luck.

This is not a place for wild parties. A sign at the ferry terminal proudly announces “No bars, no music” (George is downhearted). Walking down the High Street after dinner the only thing we saw was a deer. In fact, each hotel has its own entertainment with karaoke being popular everywhere. One evening we sing along to some old favourites (never been in a bar or night club in a dressing gown before, has to be said). We are invited to join a group of Japanese businessmen from a civil engineering company who are on a work jolly. The head man tells me earnestly that “Blair is a good man, a gentleman” and we set out to see who can sing better. Japan wins by a mile.

Miyajima Island rises over 500 m from the sea, and fortunately in view of the sweltering heat, there is a cable car to take us to the top. The forest is so unspoilt it would make a great setting for the film Jurassic Park. There are panoramic views from the top to the islands around, as well as numerous shrines and an observation point. The whole walk takes about 4 hours but is well worth it. On returning we try the “Economiyaki” (I think that means cheap barbeque), a pancake fried with bacon, cabbage, beansprouts, egg and noodles. Accompanied by some Asahi beer, it’s a simple and delicious meal.

We take a short ferry and the JR train to our next and final destination: the A-bomb museum and memorial at Hiroshima.

What a time to fall ill. George and I have just agreed we will go completely Japanese for the next 4 days, staying in Japanese-style hotels and only eating Japanese food. But something has disagreed with me and anything other than the blandest of normal food and the highest standard of Western loos is a worry. I wonder if I pop into a posh Western style hotel for a coffee, they will let me use the loo…

We take the Shinkansen bullet train from Tokyo. It’s a great way to travel even though – 40 years on – it has probably been overtaken technically by the TGV. It’s full of “sarari-men” (company executives) and we feel out of place in our casual dress. A rather nice touch is the way the ticket inspector bows to the carriage before and after inspecting our tickets. Two hours later, we pull into Kyoto station and take a taxi to our hotel, the Yoshi-Ima Ryokan. The taxi driver unusually speaks excellent English and is very proud of his car, which he tells us is “Rexus-bland” (Lexus brand). He sympathizes about the bombs in London and plays “God Save the Queen” rather loudly on his CD player as a mark of respect. “You may sing” he says, adding at the end “Thank you for listening”.

Staying at a Japanese hotel is certainly different. We leave our shoes at the entrance and the check-in formalities take place in our room (that’s an improvement). In fact, there’s a Kimono-clad woman who looks to our every whim: check-in, food, bed preparing and so on. In the room everything takes place at ground level; there’s just a 30 cm high table with a couple of cushions for us to sit on. The floor is covered in tatami mats. The window has a paper sliding blind and overlooks a small bamboo garden. Strangest is that there is no bed: it’s stored in the cupboard, and the room is converted to a bedroom after dinner. The pillow weighs about 3 kg, so pillow fights are out. Meals are served in the room by the same woman. In her very limited English she engages us in conversation, even taking a photo of us. We talk about the Beatles, Rolling Stones (“which do you prefer?”), when Eric Clapton produced his best music (“when he was with Cream”). We’re losing George at this point as there’s at least a 15 year gap between Cream splitting up and George being born; she is definitely more my generation. She – like everyone else – wants to know about the recent bombing in London and whether our friends and family are OK. “It’s Bush’s fault” she claims. Her explanation requires a lot of hand-waving: the attack happened because of the invasion of Iraq, which inflamed opinions in the Islamic world; Blair was fooled into following Bush into Iraq, and the bombs are the result. It’s a bit simplistic, but hard to argue against. We agree with her assertion “I don’t like Bush” and leave it at that.

The next morning George is in a major grump about having fish, rice and pickles for breakfast. He was rather hoping for the Chinese-style porridge and buns, but not here. With my gut still rumbling, I am allowed toast, so have a good laugh at his expense: not a highlight of rosy father/son relations. We finish quickly and set off for some major tourism.

Kyoto – like Xi’an – is an ancient capital, only relinquishing the title to Tokyo at the end of Japan’s 2 centuries of isolation from the rest of the world in C19. It’s where the Shogun was based, with his Samurai warriors. Unlike Tokyo, Kyoto was not carpet-bombed during WW2, although many older parts have been damaged in various fires and earthquakes over the years. The Shoguns lived at Nijo Castle, which has murals painted by famous artists, a so-called Nightingale floor (which squeaks as you walk over it, to warn of intruders) and spectacular gardens.

To the east of the town centre is the Kamo River, the banks of which are a Lovers Lane at night. Every few metres, couples sit close together looking out over the river. Our hotel is on the other bank in Gion, where there is the largest concentration of old houses, tea shops, Shinto (the traditional Japanese religion) temples and shrines, cherry-blossom parks; even the odd Geisha walking about. There are also extremely muscular young men offering tours in high-tech Rickshaws, but at £40 for 30 minutes, we decline. (They also seem to focus on Japanese girls, who are both more picturesque and, with their slight build, require less effort than a couple of stout European men). Instead we walk for miles.

So, what best to do after walking for miles? That’s right, we did the Philosopher’s Walk. This 2 km route – that a famous philosopher took every day to go and teach at the University – leads along a canal and past various shrines, temples, gardens and the ubiquitous tea houses. We see a 50 cm pike in the shallow waters, but otherwise devote ourselves to talking philosophically as best we can.

The night scene is not very satisfactory, consisting mostly of over-priced micro-bars, some with more than drinks on sale and some with names (e.g. the “Pink Boy”) that don’t encourage us to enter. After some research we end up at the Ringo Bar, which is full of Beatles nostalgia and projects early concert film footage onto a wall. We are invited to join a group of local Japanese psychiatric nurses – 3 women and 2 men – who want to know all about us, and about the bombs in London. One of them has been to London and Birmingham on an exchange program, and tells us that hospitals in the UK are [sucked teeth] “very different” to Japan. Ah yes, that icon of British modernity: the NHS.

Tomorrow we continue by bullet train to Hiroshima and Miyajima.

If Heathrow airport were as far from London as Narita is from Tokyo, it would be on the outskirts of Portsmouth. It’s hardly the ideal spot for the Japanese to build the airport for their capital city, evidenced by a “Down with Narita Airport” protest sign we see on landing. Tight security around the airport is apparently more about keeping the local irate farmers out – who perhaps had hoped to be growing rice rather than watching 747s take off – than any kind of conventional airport security.

We are staying at Shinjuku – near the headquarters of my former employer Phoenix’s Japanese offices – and described by the guidebook as “neon-induced schizophrenia incarnate… low life heaving with sex and sleaze… a serene skyscraper city… and consumer heaven… but for sheer sleaze Shinjuku wins hands-down”. I have no idea why Phoenix chose this area for its offices, although I understand the new management has been thinking about changing location because of its dubious reputation.

My birthday party in the evening is hosted by Jun Fujine, former head of Phoenix KK, and David Everett. There are 8 of us, including Jun’s daughter, a friend from NEC and his son; Betsy and George. We eat Shabu-shabu – Japanese fondue – with very thinly-sliced beef cooked in a broth. It’s in a private room at a restaurant at the top of one of the nearby skyscrapers, and feels very special. It turns out that the man from NEC and David are old golf adversaries, and there is some excitement around the presentation of some golf balls to David as a gift (I think David must have lost last time they played: “try these balls David, you might play better” seems to be the message).

As Pamela points out on the phone, this is the first time we’ve been apart for my birthday since 1979 (when I was in the depths of the African jungle in Gabon). Poor substitute to being together perhaps, but this party is nonetheless fun and it is great to see Jun in such good form and enjoying his new job at Yahoo Japan.

George and I have done nothing about organizing the Japan leg of our trip, as we have focused on China and HK. Apart from our hotel in Tokyo, nothing has been booked. There’s a travel agent in the hotel and, having poured over the maps and guidebooks – creating a destination shortlist of Kyoto, Okinawa, Shikoku, Miyajima and Hiroshima – we descend on them to sort out the trip. We were taunted the night before that it would be “too difficult” for us to stay in anything other than the main tourist centres and in western-style hotels, so we are determined to be brave. We insist on train travel and staying in Japanese hotels. We promise each other that, from now on, we will eat only Japanese food or drink. It feels like a schoolboy dare (one I hope will not turn out to be immensely foolish). We decide on Kyoto, Miyajima and Hiroshima by bullet train, staying in Ryokans (traditional Japanese inns). We read up on the protocol, it seems to be completely different from any hotel we have stayed in before. The only concession we make is to ask for a Ryokan “with toilet” (how can a hotel not have a toilet?).

Talking loos, the one in our hotel is a daunting computerized job, with instructions in Japanese threatening to do all sorts of bizarre things when all you want is a quiet session with the newspaper (it took me a while to realize that a sign with a rounded “W” above a dotted fountain symbol (think about it) was not in fact a Japanese character but the sign of a bottom being squirted by water from below. My advice: don’t touch any of the buttons).

We visit the old town of Tokyo – Asakusa – where the Thunder Gate sports an enormous red lantern and is protected on either side by statues of the Gods of wind and rain; a Shinto temple; a tall pagoda and an alleyway full of shops with goods ranging from the necessary to the frivolous. From there we go to Akihabara, the Tottenham Court Road of Tokyo, with all the latest gadgets, games, computers and phones. Tokyo is so large and our time so short that we have to take in other sites from the back of a taxi.

It’s been a hard day and we are looking for a drink, preferably water. We spot a vending machine with a clear liquid in a blue-labelled bottle, brand: “Aquarius”. It must be mineral water, we think. But it smells of fish and tastes of melon, which is at least better than the other way round. Somewhat to our surprise, we drink it anyway.

It’s the Everetts’ last night, and we decide on a Korean BBQ. The menu is only in Japanese so ordering is a struggle. The waiter finds us so incompetent that he cooks the food for us. It’s good, with the beef going particularly well with the traditional pickled cabbage. George and I end up in the sleazy part of Shinjuku, shaking off Nigerian and Greek pimps to find a nice bar where we finish the evening playing pool and drinking a couple of whiskies. Japanese, of course.

If it were not for the fact that China post-1949 effectively disappeared off the world stage for 30 years, I think it would be an easier country for Europeans to feel comfortable visiting than Japan. In the eyes of many Chinese, there is still a glint of excitement having foreign visitors in increasing numbers (and a chance to practice their English), making us feel special. The Japanese have got used to foreigners staring and photographing everything, and generally just ignore us.

From tomorrow our trip will get harder, and perhaps more exciting, as we venture away from the capital and its concentration of foreigners, to Kyoto and beyond.

“One country, two systems” is the way Hong Kong’s relationship with the mainland is described. And it shows – immediately on arrival – as we get whisked through the airport in a blend of Chinese energy and Western efficiency. The airport express train is quick, clean, and – like most things in Hong Kong – cheaper than its London counterpart.

We are staying on Hong Kong Island near the exhibition centre, not (as some wag has suggested) because it is within walking distance of the night clubs on Lockhart Road, but because I’m managed to get a good rate. Ah yes, something else about the “two systems”: this is nothing like as cheap a place as the mainland. But you can access the BBC website, watch BBC World TV (there appears to be no censorship here at all) and even photograph policeman (no, we didn’t try; it just seems as if it should be possible). It’s not that the Chinese are invisible – with the Red Flag flying over Governor’s House it’s difficult to miss their presence – it’s just that they are not trying to impose the more extreme aspects of their regime. There is progressively more Mandarin to be heard, and more simplified Chinese writing to be seen. It will not take long for HK linguistically to look like any Chinese province, with Cantonese being relegated to a regional dialect. But there are many larger hurdles still to overcome before full unification will be comfortable or welcomed: individual freedoms, the legal system, corporate governance, a transparent financial system… and that’s without adding that HK drives on the left and the mainland on the right (although we found out last year that China used to drive on the left, but changed over at some unknown time and for some unknown reason). Fortunately HK was never very democratic, so at least Beijing does not need to worry about irritating things like a mandate from the masses.

Just to underline how different HK is from China, we have BLT sandwiches from Prêt à Manger for lunch, at the bottom of the Lippo skyscraper, a weird glass monster that looks like one of those wooden puzzles Father Christmas pops into your stocking and you find you can’t get back together after taking it apart for the first time. The walkways that link so many of the skyscrapers are useful as – being much farther south – we are treated to quite a few tropical rainstorms. But everyone takes it in their stride; like in the French Alps: if you don’t like the weather, just wait 15 minutes.

Right outside the hotel is a Star ferry terminal, and we take one of these wonderful historic relics across to Kowloon. The boat we are on was built in 1964, but this post-steam design dates back to a 1920’s design in Liverpool, and that is more the age it feels. We chug over leisurely with enough time to appreciate the modernity and higgledy-piggledy condensed architecture of the skyscrapers at Central, the peak rising behind it and the ships queuing to enter Kowloon port. At 15p, it’s great value too. In Kowloon, we are accosted by tailors offering overnight suits and even a Rolex salesman. Intrigued, we establish the watches are not of the “3 for £10” variety so common in China, but beautifully made copies for about £80. IP theft is illegal in Hong Kong, and we are spirited away to a dingy flat at the top of a scruffy skyscraper to look at the merchandise. We feel vaguely surprised to be still in one piece on the way out. There is also a (legal) shop selling products from the mainland, with prices that seem lower. I accused the Chinese on the mainland that when they say “special price”, they in fact mean foreigners are charged double. Perhaps there’s no such premium here.

Once back on HK island, we take another English engineering relic: the Tram. It rattles and groans its way through Central, Wanchai to Causeway Bay, where we walk around the lovely Victoria Park which, with several children’s amusement parks and beautiful gardens: rather as if Kew Gardens were equipped with swings and roundabouts.

Completing our rebellion of Chinese food, we eat at an excellent Italian restaurant in the evening, washed down with Pinot Noir from Tasmania (a quick toast to Paul W for introducing us to it). The waiter, a bouncy young Dutch chap, recommends us to go to Lang Kwai Fang, the party area of Hong Kong. Always up for a challenge, we end up at a bar called “The George” (well, we thought it appropriate) with an interior that looks like a cross between an English pub and an office in Canary Wharf. This seems to be where the hard-working financial community comes to unwind: there are lawyers in expensive suits drinking San Miguel from the bottle and a woman who looks like an efficient investment banker by day, but who falls over from too much alcohol. This is not really my kind of place: there’s no-one over 40 and the music is so loud we can’t hear each other speak. George points out that there is no-one his age here either; this seems to be a place for early career 30-something singles to come and chill out (or fall over) after a hard day’s work. Or perhaps this is where the resident “Filth” (Failed In London, Try Hong Kong) meets the visiting “Swell” (Single Woman Earning Lots in London).

The next day, after a long brunch at a Starbucks-like café, we take the peak tram, another museum-piece of Victorian engineering. It is very simple, with two cars – one going up and one down – connected by a single cable going round a pulley at the top. It wobbles rather alarmingly on arrival, with the cable stretching and contracting. At the top there are great views all around the island, a huge shopping centre and a branch of Mme Tussauds wax museum. Li Kai Shing’s house (the owner of “3” amongst other things) is apparently up there, but the closest we got to him is his wax model outside the museum.

With its beachfront restaurants, low-rise apartments and vibrant market Stanley, on the other side of the island, is more reminiscent of the French Riviera than China. We end up in a Thai restaurant, with the tables inside being more popular because it is so hot outside.

Hong Kong is a hit with us both, but our time is up and we must move on. Next stop: Tokyo.

We are getting near the end of our time on mainland China, and we are going to miss a lot about this country, even the Chinglish. “Property boundaries overlapped because of a lack of careless planning” is a mild example in an introductory video to Beijing. A particular favourite is the sign in one of our hotel rooms: “Care our earth and leave it here after using freely.” (That’s fortunate, I am not sure what the airline would have said about the excess baggage otherwise).

With the varied international backgrounds of the pupils at Southbank, it shouldn’t have been as much of a surprise as it was to find ourselves having a drink with 5 of them in the atrium of the rather posh Beijing Grand Hotel (which describes itself as “formally a palace, now a hotel” but should perhaps more accurately be “formally a piece of wasteland between a hotel and a road leading to a palace, and now an extension to the hotel”). Other than George, there’s goddaughter Kim (here for 6 months as part of her linguistics course at Tübingen University); Kaat Brulez (visiting her mother who has been living in Lhasa for about a year); Sylvia Pronk (a friend of Katie, also at Kent University, and working as an intern in a Law firm in Beijing) and Lars Dabney (ex-BF of Katie’s, studying Politics at Columbia and doing a summer program in China to learn Chinese). Including George, between them they are studying 5 different University courses (Linguistics, Zoology, Law, Politics and Physics/Philosophy) and together with the older generation at drinks (David, Betsy and Chinese colleague Vera), the 9 of us comprises 7 nationalities.

Kim also organizes a dinner for the under-25s and me at another inevitable Peking Duck restaurant, together with 3 of her friends from Tübingen. She takes complete charge of ordering the food, and I have to admit my heart sinking as more and more seemingly unexciting vegetarian dishes arrive (nuts covered in sesame seeds for dinner, anyone?). But I’m wrong; there’s a great balance for carnivores and veggies alike: not just the duck, but also some of the best spicy beef I have ever eaten. And the veggies tucked into the slimy aubergine with relish, so everyone was happy. After dinner, they leave to go out partying – I want to get back to the hotel as we have an early flight to Hong Kong (George makes it back to the hotel with an hour to spare).

My father was born in Beijing and spent the first 10 years of his life here. His father (my grandfather) was buried here and until some intense detective work last year, we were not sure where he was buried, or even whether he was in a cemetery. Last year, we worked out he was buried in the “New Municipal Foreigners Cemetery” and found the place. This time, George and I erect a black marble plaque in his memory. This involves some intense discussions with the cemetery manager, as we do not have quite enough proof for his liking that he is actually buried there, but in the end we convince him. The plaque is in English and Chinese, and looks splendid amongst all the other plaques, which are in Chinese only. It feels like the end of a chapter.

We also visit the house where my father was born, because last year he was not convinced that we had found the right one. We walk the full length of the street (it is quite short) and talk to anyone we can find who looks over 60. It turns out that one half of the street was badly damaged by fire in 1919, the year he was born, which confirms that the other side of the road is where his house must have been, as we suspected. Comparing the various road junctions with his memory of them, there are only two possible houses that could be his and we are 90% convinced it is the house we originally suspected. We take some pictures of the other one just in case it jogs some memories. (It does have an aviary and keeping birds was his hobby at that time).

A final word on Beijing for those of you who may be concerned that China might have lost its uniqueness, represented best by the cumbersome bureaucracy and inherent inefficiencies that go with a communist system: The new China may be buzzing, but the bureaucracies haven’t quite gone. Taking a flight from Beijing airport now involves:
- Fill in a form (it’s only available in Chinese) declaring everything you are taking out of the country
- Present the form for inspection, together with passport and ticket to gain access to the check-in area
- Queue to collect the next form: an emigration form; fill it in
- Present form, passport and ticket to official, who checks it
- Present form, passport and ticket to airline for check-in
- Present boarding pass, passport and form to another official to gain access to the immigration area
- Present boarding pass, passport and form to immigration official, who stamps the passport and keeps the form
- Present passport and boarding pass to security official, to gain access to security area
- Put luggage through scanner and be searched
- Go to gate (in a bit of a hurry by this stage)
- Present passport and boarding pass to gate; pass is scanned and part one removed; move to airside
- New official looks at passport and removes part two of the boarding pass
- Board aircraft, and have the boarding pass checked for the last time by a flight attendant

Oof.

Next stop is Hong Kong: we are off to try the “One country, two systems”.

It’s an anti-climax. After 6 flights through 4 provinces of China, arriving in the capital does not feel as special as it should. Beijing is more international, safer and above all less strange than what we’ve been through the last few days. Perhaps we are just too used to being amazed, excited and out of our depth suddenly to be so comfortable.

We are met at the airport by Doreen’s father, who seems relieved (and even a little surprised) to find his daughter not just in one piece, but positively glowing. They too have had a great time. After Doreen’ father has told the taxi driver where to take us (and lectured him about not ripping us off), we leave them to head to the Beijing Grand Hotel. It’s right next to Tiananmen Square: home of Mao’s tomb, the Forbidden City, the Museum of China and the place where perhaps 3,000 students met their death in a failed democracy demonstration in 1989. Other than the fact we see more soldiers in the first few minutes than we have seen in our entire trip, there’s not much sign of that milestone. But there is a thirst for knowledge in China: our concise history book on China for example (which has helped me become the world’s worst pub bore on Chinese history) is in great demand, with people wanting to read what other people are saying about this great country.

Everyone wants to talk to us: to find out who we are, what we are doing in China, whether it is our first visit, what we think of it, or just to sell us another of those £5 Rolexes. They start by asking us where we are from, but it’s no good saying “London – have you been there?” (which after all would be a perfectly reasonable question in most other countries); it seems like another planet to them. George’s smattering of Chinese is a great ice breaker, with the ubiquitous “bu yao” (“I don’t want it”) sending most street vendors into hoots of laughter. I have not cracked the race thing here: the ethnically Chinese are called “Han”, but we have not yet met anyone who claims to be anything other than Han, even though there are positive discrimination rules for ethnic minorities. Like Harry Potter’s mudbloods, apparently once a Han has had children with a non-Han, the offspring and further generations are not considered pure Han.

I would love to have more political debates with people here; it is just not something they are used to doing. They are happy to talk about Hong Kong (although they enjoy seeing me squirm about the Opium wars), Taiwan, Tibet and even Tiananmen Square and are very interested in what other countries think about China. The question I have asked a few times, but not had a better response to yet than wide-mouthed amazement at the question, is: “Think forward to the day that the GDP per head of China is the same as that of the USA. Assume that the Chinese government has similar global leadership goals and political aspirations of today’s US government. Would the world feel comfortable being led by a country as assertive as the US today, but with a population of 1.3 billion? It frankly makes me feel a touch queasy (another word for Dickkie to add to what we should dub the Dickkitionary) but a disturbingly common view is that China will not get there without some kind of internal unrest first. And the chance of China invading Taiwan? Zero – the Chinese are too busy making money.

There’s a report today on CNN TV about Sierra Leone (the BBC website is blocked and BBC World TV is not broadcast in China – what can the BBC have done to upset the Chinese, other than perhaps bore them to death?). In an interview, a Sierra Leone minister explains how China has built them a national sports stadium, parliament and resort hotel in “less time than it takes the British to do an environmental impact survey”. Perhaps we could get the Chinese to build Crossrail and, while they are about it, update the Underground. It should cost less too (although no doubt we would have to pay them in cash).

This evening we have the compulsory Peking Duck meal with David Everett (colleague), his wife Betsy and Kim Fechner (god-daughter). Like most of our meals in China, it’s fun, messy and inexpensive.

As you can see, I’m waffling because there’s not much to report – I have spent most of the day on email and Skype and not been a tourist. George on the other hand has been yomping (Dikkitionary entry) along the Great Wall, and trying to chat to the soldiers guarding Mao’s tomb. He discovers they do not have a well-developed sense of humour.

Perhaps there will be more to say before we leave on Friday for Hong Kong.

China never ceases to amaze me. It is changing so quickly that some things get out of kilter; take prices for example. A coffee at the airport is £5; a 3-course lunch is £1. A new thick anorak is £3; a Cohiba £12. A night at the stunning Jiuzhai Spa Resort is £25 a head; entry to the Jiuzhaigou park is also £25. Gulp. (There is also no functioning credit system in China, and many bills have to be settled in cash. The largest banknote is RMB 100: about £6. Shops are generally equipped with bill-counters, so when I, feeling like a drug-dealer, pay for all the internal flights by handing over a 5cm wad of notes, they feed it through the machine to confirm it’s the right amount.)

Anyway, this park is similar to the Plitvice lakes in Croatia: a beautiful valley with many lakes interconnected by waterfalls. There is a wooden slatted path you follow up and down the lakes. The park is too big to walk in its entirety, so there are shuttle buses between the main points. We are advised to arrive early, because it is very popular and gets crowded. The advice turns out to be misguided, in that all the tour groups arrive at 9:00 (the same time as us) so there is a zoo of flag-waving guides followed by tourists wearing colour-coordinated baseball caps. There was even a delegation of diplomats from Zambia, complete with police escort, who arrive at the lakes, have their photograph taken in front of a waterfall next to a rather luscious Tibetan girl, then leave. Time in resort: 8 minutes; we manage 8 hours. The other delightful thing is that the lake resort is so enormous, and the tourists on the guided tours so unadventurous that, once in the park, we hardly see anyone.

It goes without saying that this is of such breathtaking beauty that any photo looks flat in comparison. The waters are a crystal-clear aquamarine and there are more waterfalls than most people would likely otherwise see in their lifetime. In winter apparently the waterfalls half-freeze, and in summer there are insects everywhere but relatively few birds. We see a Chinese squirrel that looks like a cross between a raccoon and a hamster. There are quite a few fish, but we don’t see anything larger than a few cm in length. The water is full of trees that have died and fallen into the water, lying at the bottom seemingly preserved, as well as many trees still alive and growing in the shallows and the rapids approaching the waterfalls. George asks the chicken and egg question: “what came first, the trees or the water?”. It’s a good question, because in places the water is quite deep and fast-flowing round the tree, as if the ground has been flooded. We see a clump of grass about 10 cm across, that sticks up as an island through about 30cm of water. There are plants that have had their soil so washed away by the fast-flowing water that large clumps of red roots are showing.

The most impressive section is where the walkway crosses between two lakes, in the middle of a diagonal waterfall. The upper lake is at eye level, and the water rushes past underfoot to land several metres below on the other side. It’s a great place for photos (and to get wet).

There are 9 villages in the valley (Jiuzhaigou means Nine Villages Valley), built in the Tibetan style of either ornately painted wood, or loose stone (the latter look as if they are either not yet finished or about to be demolished). There are water-powered prayer-wheels (for those too lazy to pray themselves we are told), and prayer flags everywhere. One enterprising person has built his small house on stilts over fast moving water, with a horizontal waterwheel underneath, presumably for electricity.

One of the villages is full of tourist shops, and we stop and talk to an elderly woman in traditional dress, carrying her granddaughter. She refuses to be photographed, but the setting could be something out of National Geographic.

At the end of the day, having had our fill of rushing water, we take the bus back down. The driver is keen to practice his English (we are the only Europeans on the bus) and announces in English at every bus stop on the way down: “This is called Dragon Lake. Would anyone like to stop here and take a photograph?” It’s not that he expects us to say yes (it is after all the end of the day and everyone is leaving), it’s just that he wants to practice his English. We saw that earlier in the day when we stop to chat with one of the park wardens (strictly speaking: more of a cleaner) and she explains she has a daughter who would like to become a tourist guide, and would we have time to give her an English lesson?

Next stop is Beijing, the capital.

Sichuan province is best known for spicy food, and pandas. The capital Chengdu’s zoo has the largest collection of pandas in the world, and the HQ of the China panda conservation centre is also in the city. But we have only 3 hours here en-route from Xi-an to Jiuzhai and it turns out the airport is too far from the town to venture in.

The plane from Xi-an is packed (we are the only non-Chinese on board, but they do make all the announcements in English, just for us. Every announcement starts: “Ladies and Gentlemen, can I have your attention please”). We land to find that our next flight leaves from Chengdu’s other airport. Fortunately it is right next door and is a delightful mix of the old and the new: with a pipe shop called “The Charming Gentleman”, a foot massage parlour as well as unlimited Internet access for £3, including video conferencing.

In view of the short time until our flight leaves, we opt to have lunch at the very nearest place we can see: the airport restaurant, which is about 200m from the terminal in an anonymous block building. Downstairs is what looks like the canteen for the airport workers, but upstairs is a huge, clean Chinese restaurant with tables laid as far as the eye can see – imagine a restaurant in an indoor football pitch, with lino flooring and whitewashed walls. If a couple of 747s are ever diverted to Chengdu, people will at least not go hungry. There is only one other table occupied, and there are many more staff than customers.

The food is some of the best we have had this trip: spicy beef in vegetables, sweetcorn with peppers, and fish served in such a copious sauce that “soup” might be a better word. The Chinese have a completely different way of jointing to Europeans, just chopping up the fish or meat in such a way that every piece seems to come with its own small piece of bone, which is quite a challenge with chopsticks. But overall the food is delicious (or should I say “scrumptious”, as we are trying to enlarge our guide Dickkie’s English vocabulary. As it is already extraordinarily deep – he sometimes produces words that George is not sure about – we have to find more and more obscure words). The bill for 4 comes to RMB 54 – less than £1 a head. Yum, yum.

The next flight is also packed and again we are the only non-Chinese or at least the only Europeans. The plane lands at Jiuzhai airport high in the northern part of Sichuan province. The airport is new, but very small. Our aircraft is the only one at the airport, and baggage claim is more a question of grabbing it as it is unloaded. We are at 3,000 metres altitude here, and the temperature has dropped from 34°C to 17°C. The only product on sale in the only shop in the airport is a thick anorak, for RMB 50: £3. A taxi takes us the 70 km to the hotel through breathtaking very green mountain scenery, past yaks and bison, small colourful Tibetan villages with Buddhist prayer flags, all with his hand more on the horn than off (there are so few people here that it is not clear why he keeps hooting, only that they all do).

We are staying at a fabulous world-class resort, called Jiuzhai Paradise. Imagine if Disney designed a Tibetan-themed resort in the Eden project. So, within huge glass domes, there are shops, bars, restaurants, karaoke, massage parlours, exhibitions etc all in houses built in a village style. There are hostesses in traditional Tibetan costume, gardens with large trees, ponds with fish, ducks, even a swan. There’s a spa with 6 swimming pools, sauna, steam room and a complete array of massages (I choose Tibetan, which is a mistake unless you like being hit all over with a yak’s horn). The resort is enormous, with a capacity of 3,000. Here there are foreigners – a few Korean and Japanese have ventured over – but other than one other Brit with his Chinese wife and a German with his Chinese girlfriend – we are the only Europeans.

Although every sign is in both English and Chinese, it is not necessarily easy to understand what is going on, or to communicate (at check-out for example the cashier has to ask a colleague what the word for “credit-card” is in English). Someone should write a book on Chinglish, this Chinese interpretation of English. My favourite sign was in the spa: “Dunk the hot spring 15 minutes of beneficial” it read. We also had a great conversation with a waiter and waitress trying to order a cocktail – George’s eyes had landed on one called “Grasshopper”, but before ordering he wanted to know what was in it. The waitress spoke no English at all, so called on the assistance of someone with supposedly better language skills. Trying to keep the conversation as simple as possible, George pointed to Grasshopper in the menu, and asked “what is it?”. “No”, replied the waiter. We couldn’t think of a suitable riposte (the Grasshopper turned out to be a rather nice minty job).

George, with Dickkie and Doreen’s help, has picked up a smattering of Chinese. His phrase book, faithfully written up in his travel log, consists of:
I’m from London
You are beautiful
Would you like to dance?
How much does it cost?
That’s too expensive
No, thanks
I don’t understand
Goodbye

I’m assured they are not necessarily supposed to be used one after another.

Next stop: Jiuzhaigou, a nature reserve.

Different eras of Chinese history – so our guide explained – are best viewed from different places: Shenzhen (the once sleepy village next to Hong Kong and now a major manufacturing region) for the last 10 years’ history; Shanghai (with its international quarters in the early C20) for 100 years; Beijing (the capital since C13) for 1,000 years and Xi’an (the ancient capital) for 10,000 years of history.

The emperor Qin Shi Huang united China in 200BC, and built the Great Wall around the perimeter to keep the Mongols out. He was also a great long-term planner, starting work on his own grave when he was just 12. Employing some 700,000 people, the grave is both large – covering several square kilometres – and full of treasures. His actual grave (which you can’t visit) is supposed to have a miniature model of China, with the Yangtze and Yellow rivers filled with mercury so that his coffin could float down them. Most famously, his grave is protected by nearly 10,000 terracotta soldiers – each different and wonderfully detailed – divided into groups of infantry, cavalry and archermen. They all face east, just in case the countries that had been conquered changed their minds about being part of a unified China.

Qin got his comeuppance shortly after his death, with the tomb being sacked in a peasant’s revolt (led by unemployed clay sculptors perhaps?); the warriors were broken and the wooden roof set alight. So it lay, until discovered by a farmer in the mid 1970s (who is still around to sign his autograph for suitable remuneration). China’s marketing skills could still do with a bit of honing, as the Terracotta army is positioned amongst the 7 Wonders of the World… as Number 8. In any event, it’s a pretty impressive place to visit.

Xi’an (which btw has the apostrophe to show it has two syllables, pronounced She-ann, rather than Sharn) is a walled city. Recently restored, it provides a dramatic surrounding for what is otherwise a pretty dull place. In the main city square is a Bell Tower, (with one of the largest swarms of bats I have ever seen) and nearby a Drum Tower and mosque. The presence of the mosque is to do with the Silk Road – which starts in Xi’an – an old trade route with the Middle East. Otherwise it is pretty much made up of wide streets with Cultural Revolution-era shops. An exception is a new shopping centre which is like walking into Hong Kong, with a gleaming selection of small boutiques selling Cartier, Nike, Burberry and the like. Tourism must pay well.

We stay near the South Gate of the city, at the Grand Palace Hotel, which is not particularly to be recommended. Its concrete atrium is rather soulless – with landings which would not look out of place in a prison – even though the rooms are clean and presentable. It is getting cheaper though… less than RMB 600 (£40) a night.

Our first night we eat in a local restaurant, which serves the local speciality of unleavened bread in a mutton broth, accompanied by some slightly bizarre dishes: cold Spätzle in spicy pizza oil, fat glass noodles in vinegar and (yes…) Cornish pasties. China has a lot to thank the Germans for too, as the Tsing Tao beer (a legacy of when Germany annexed Qing Dao province) is excellent. The second night we eat Teppanyaki in the hotel, which is a little surreal.

Most tourists are herded around by officious flag-carrying guides in buses, and do not get out into the town alone. As a result, George and I found we caused a bit of a stir, not just with the omnipresent beggars and street-salesmen, but also with a boy of George’s age who just wanted to practice his English. He walked with us for several minutes talking about anything and everything (global warming is apparently caused by too many trees being cut down to make chopsticks). Without our guides, we ventured into what we thought was a bar, but turned out to be a nightclub. The dancing and singing floor show was followed by the audience dancing, with George winning the prize of the evening: a bunch of plastic flowers. Ever the gentleman, he gave the flowers to the rather glamorous girl who had been his dance partner. Unfortunately she could only speak 3 words of English, none of which was “Thanks”. But she looked grateful.

Next stop: Jiuzhaigou (Nine Villages Valley) in northern Sechuan province, the Lake District of China apparently.

The Peace Hotel in Shanghai claims to be the most famous hotel in the world, and is certainly an icon of survival against the odds. Built by a British Jew in the 1920s at the height of Shanghai’s time as an international open city, it survived being invaded by the Japanese, the civil war between the nationalists and communists, the Communist and the Cultural Revolutions, calmly serving Mao Tais, green teas and providing rooms to international guests the whole time. The worst threat today is the unlikely prospect of an invasion by fake Rolex salesmen, who prowl outside waiting for trade. (I have never seen a fake Rolex sold by the way, but that is not the only unexplained mystery about the Chinese economy today.)

The Peace Hotel is on the corner of Nanjing Road and the Bund, the two most famous roads in Shanghai. Across the Huang-Pu river, it overlooks Pudong – the brash new Shanghai – with its collection of skyscrapers, each taller than the next; flashing neon lights, conference centre out of a Star Wars film set, and enormous television tower (no-one can explain to me why such a tower is actually needed, other than to show off). It is a striking contrast with the Bund on the other river bank, with its Gothic architecture which would not look out of place at Blackfriars Bridge. The most dramatic building is probably the old Customs House (now a bank), with its copy of Big Ben on top of a building that looks like Somerset House. Apparently the stones used to build the buildings on the Bund were all shipped in from England. It shows.

At the north end of the Bund is an iron bridge that could be a miniature of the Forth Bridge. Although now inadequate for the increased traffic, the Chinese have left it as an historic landmark: it marks the point where the Japanese invaded the international settlements in 1937.
Shanghai clearly buzzed in its heyday in the 1920s, and it is doing so again today. The streets teem with shoppers, salesmen, people out with friends and others just going about their work. There are old bars, new bars, sleazy bars and smart bars. There is every choice of restaurant, where you can pay London prices, or eat for just £2 a head. The shops have the latest Italian clothing, or Chinese silks, antiques, Jade or just cheap trinkets. A newspaper article reported local government worries of the population declining – a sign of economic development perhaps – but the 50,000 reduction is more than offset by the 2M people who come without permits to look for work.

With only 36 hours in this amazing city, we follow the main tourist circuit: the Bund; the Shanghai museum with its old potteries; the museum of Urban Planning with a fantastic model of Shanghai as it is today, a full size model of the city in the 1930s and a great collection of old photos to show how the city has developed; go up the 88-floor Hyatt hotel with its views through the pollution down to the city; and of course an evening in Xintiandi, the party quarter. This is a development by a Hong Kong company with old buildings restored to a higher standard than when they were first built. With its old architecture, boutique shops, bars and restaurants and hoards of young people, it has the feel of Covent Garden. (Mind you, I can’t see a night club in London employing schoolgirls in uniform to advertise itself).

We enter “T8” (where we ate) across a small slate bridge over an indoor artificial river. The restaurant, with its gleaming exposed kitchen, extensive wine list and over-designed interior, would be more comfortable in Menlo Park, Manhattan or Mayfair than in the middle of the world’s greatest communist state. Our host Lisa asks George – now that he’s been in China for a few days – whether he wants to ask her anything. Anything at all, she stresses: it could be the one-child policy for example. After we’ve got over the first teenage-style question (“with 5,000 characters, how do you send text messages?”), his next question hits the spot: “Is China a communist country?”. Lisa hesitates, replies “Yes”, but then spends several minutes explaining how it isn’t really. This is a country undergoing a huge change.

The after-dinner activity involved 3 bars: supposedly French, Chinese and German styles. George ended up dancing with a very attractive Taiwanese girl of 22, although I was less comfortable with being left with her overweight lesbian aunt, who spoke 5 languages, but none in common with any of mine.

I knew George would enjoy Shanghai, it’s almost impossible not to. Next stop Xi’an, an ancient capital.

Having just returned from a few - far too few - delightful days in the French alps, I could not help noticing there a sense of national excitement, even tension. Something is in the air, a sense of change, a feeling that we are witnessing history being made. If nations have stomachs (and if any of them do, France surely must have one), then the country has butterflies. Big time.

The Euro is coming, and as the radio commercials keep reminding everyone, in just a matter of weeks. The opinion polls have now moved from 50%/50% firmly in favour of the Euro; if there are any lingering doubts it's about how, not why. There are worries about the awkward exchange rate, which converts about 6.5 francs into a Euro. Germany has a rate of 2 to 1, and Italy 2000 to 1, but converting 6.5 to 1 is not obvious - "bientot une cassette video vierge ne coutera plus 80 francs, mais EUR12.20 - c'est facile!" claims the radio commercial, somewhat breathlessly. The French are going to have to get good at mental arithmetic. Not a national characteristic that springs to mind when you think of the French. Foodies - certainly; sophisticated - without a doubt; but mathematicians - no, I don't think so.

Preparations are well advanced, with dual pricing on every product, and more recently with the Euro pricing being more prominent. The marketing price point is starting to be around the Euro - with prices moving from for example Frs19.99/EUR3.02 to EUR2.99/Frs19.58. The government is concerned that retailers will use this rounding to the next price point as an excuse to raise prices (as happened in Britain in 1971), and there is some evidence that inflation is already being driven up.

There are also concerns about whether all the ATMs are going to be filled with enough Euros on 1st January, but overall the French have faith that it will all be all right on the night. The nay Sayers are nowhere to be seen. There is no Norman Tebbit arguing that the Euro will never happen; no David Owen saying "Non", not even (as there was today in The Times), 700 industrialists claiming the government would lose control of the economy if the Euro is adopted. So why is Europhobia such a uniquely British phenomenon?

The main argument for joining is that the elimination of exchange rate risk and exchange costs will encourage cross-border economic activity and lower prices, or put simply, people will be better off. There will be a magnetic effect towards the Euro, and I have certainly seem some examples of that already. My own company sells products over the Internet, and the supplier we are using for the credit card processing can only deal in dollars or Euros. The main investor in the company now raises all its funds in Euros, as most of the money comes from abroad.
A senior BMW executive was recently quoted as saying that Britain's non-adoption of the Euro had led BMW to source most of the machine tools and the components for the new Mini in Germany, and British suppliers had lost out as a result. (I personally found that one a bit odd, because most companies try to reduce their foreign exchange exposure by matching their local currency sales with local currency expenditure, and many of the Minis will be sold in Britain, but I suspect he was referring more to the high relative value of the pound).

As I ask people what the reasons for not joining are, I have heard a lot! These seem to boil down to the following:
- There is a loss of sovereignty because interest rates will be set by the ECB in Frankfurt, rather than by the Bank of England in London
- Economies move in different economic cycles, making it impossible to have a common monetary policy that works for every country all the time
- The Europeans have a different, more dirigiste, approach to economics which goes counter to the more open market British attitude.
- A whole set of emotional issues such as not wanting to be linked to a weak currency, the pound is an intrinsic part of British culture, 'Save the Pound' etc.

Of these, the only one that really stands up to close scrutiny is the argument about the loss of sovereignty. Yes, there are different economic cycles, but that is just as true within a country. Britain has often seen a booming London at the same time as a slumping North. Or a booming services sector at the same time as manufacturing stagnates.

The pro-lobby argues that there is not a loss of sovereignty. One politician recently called it a 'pooling' of soverignty, where like being a shareholder in a large company, you have less say, but in a larger entity. A more powerful argument is that governments already have little control, having ceded it to the Central Bankers and to the international money markets. Thus Eddie George sets the interest rates, not the government, and he can only do what the markets let him. Being the global, open market trading country that Britain now is, we have already ceded our sovereignty to the markets in exchange for being richer.

That is the nub of the argument - do we want to be richer? The price is some sovereignty, much of which we don't really have anyway. If the opinion polls are to be believed, the British do not want to be richer.

French friends I ask put the British attitude down to our historically consistent wariness of change. One summed it up by saying "you were one of the last countries to join the Iron and Steel community after the war, and you will be one of the last to join the Euro, but it will happen eventually".

I have a different theory about the negative attitude though, and it is to do with timing. Within two months of the introduction of the Euro, national currencies will be taken out of circulation. Within six months, only the central banks will change the old currencies. Decimalisation in Britain on the other hand was started 30 years ago and is still not finished. A motoring magazine I was reading recently has car lengths in inches but the weight in kilos. A bed I bought in London was metric, but the mattress was imperial, so it did not fit. We bought 3 yards of carpet for a room - the carpet width was 4 metres.

So perhaps if the ECB would only agree to allow a longer transition - say 60 years rather than 60 days - Britain might indeed agree to adopt the Euro.

Marketing can be a dangerous thing, unless of course you're able to spot the traps that project managers weave into their messages. However bad the product or event, a positive spin is de-rigeur.

For example, I have to smile with some Americans' dewy eyed view of Ireland - "The Emerald Isle". What a great place to vacation, find one's roots, explore the old world! Fine, but does one ever wonder why it is associated with that luscious green that is emerald? Yup, you guessed right, it rains. A lot. The marketing person responsible for promoting Irish tourism could instead have pointed to what I think the Irish are best known for - their pubs – where you can drink excellent beer inside buildings with small windows and no terraces. Think about it...

So I should have been suspicious about Kauai - the "Garden Isle". After Maui, where the largest industry seems to be selling rather strong sun screen, Kauai's equivalent should perhaps be to sell umbrellas. I never thought that I would find a place in the world where it rains more than in England – but here it is. We are staying within a mile of the wettest place in the world, but the marketing people have even managed to put a positive spin on that too: "Top Place in The World".

Having said all that, the rain is in fact a benefit in terms of cooling, watering and generally changing things. It does mean that we are probably using more insect repellent than sun screen, but once you're used to the rain, it is actually quite pleasant. No shower lasts long and you can continue to swim, lie on the beach, walk or whatever during the shower and quickly dry off when the sun returns.

Kauai is stunning, a Walt Disney imaginary land made real. Although small, much of it is unconquered and wild. The people redefine the expression 'laid back'. The pace is s l o w, really s l o w. Tourists are welcomed but not lavished upon, tourism is tolerated but not encouraged. The local bar for example has roughly hewn wooden floors, wooden walls, ceiling fans, an occasional band with mostly home-made instruments (the right adjective might be enthusiastic rather than professional) and Mai-Tais to die for. I like places where they recognize you on the second visit and treat you like a local from the third.

We are staying in Hanalei on the North Shore of Kauai. For those Rolf Harris fans amongst you, this is the home of Puff the Magic Dragon (remember the words: "lived by the sea ... in a land called Hanalei"). Haven't spotted him yet, but there is a mountain ridge that just could be...

We've rented a house within walking distance of the beach (1 minute if you walk slowly). It is next to Michael Crichton's house, which is being done up, so sorry no autographs. But crucially it is on the other side of the road from the sea, which enormously affects the price. This is the place to cure people from thinking that Atherton real estate prices are high: here they are Internet stock option-thinningly expensive. An attractive house on the sea (4br, 3bth) opposite us is for sale. In Atherton it might fetch $1.8M, in more normal places it would struggle to cross the $500k mark. Here it's for sale for $5M. And that's because it has a termite infection problem! How the locals manage I have no idea.

Katie and I have done our Scuba certification, and can now dive alone if we wish. It felt strange sitting an exam together with enthusiastic teenagers, who can learn more quickly and are used to being taught. Still, I passed, although I don't recommend the bit about taking off your scuba equipment and putting it back on again in a choppy sea. On the first dive after becoming certified (if you see what I mean) we saw a 4 ft white tip shark glide effortlessly past us - a wonderful sight, as well as many other interesting and colourful sea-life of all kinds. Scuba diving is fun, a sort of cross between snorkelling and taking a moon-walk (but with more fish!).

Many well known movies have been filmed here, including South Pacific (yes I know it dates me mentioning that one), 6 Days 7 Nights and Jurassic Park. We rented South Pacific just to see the beach in front of where we are staying and the views as they were 40 years ago. Not much has changed!

Valentine, the daughter of a French friend, is staying with us here, and she summed it up rather well on the phone to her parents the other day. In response to the inevitable 'so what's it like?' question, she shrugged her shoulders in a way only the French can truly master, and replied "C'est le paradis".

In fact that is a good summary of Kauai: despite world tourism, the risk of over-development, an explosion of prosperity and crazy house prices, this remains much as it has been for many years - a delightfully relaxed and friendly people living simple lives based around the sea and everything it offers. Plus the advantage of being in America, so everything works.

Aloha!

On the plane today from Zurich to Los Angeles, I really thought that I'd cracked it. US immigration must be a binary system - it takes two months to get a visa, two weeks to get the visa into the passport, two days to reunite the passport with its owner, two hours to get through immigration and two minutes to get through customs. "See you in two seconds" I thought would be the right message.

But then I thought about the data. Over the past several weeks the US has accumulated more information about me than just about anyone. This is not just inside leg measurements for example (normally restricted to my wife and my tailor) but all sorts of personal thoughts, preferences and background (some things that even I don't like to think about). In the old days they were concerned about reds under the beds; today it seems to be more reds in the bed.

So what on earth do they do with all this information? I'm delighted to tell you that I've found out.

On arrival in LA, I was filled with excitement. This was going to be the first time that I was allowed to use a queue other than the one marked "Aliens". I couldn't find one marked "Humans" so I settled for "US residents". There the immigration official inserted my passport into a machine which scanned the visa and read in the data. The screen instantly filled with what type of bread I eat in the morning, how old my mother was when she first employed a German Au Pair and of course, my inside leg measurement. What possible value is all this to an over-worked immigration official with 300 frustrated 'humans' waiting behind me?

I loved his comment. It showed the importance of all this data gathering and that that this was not just a plot by Seagate and IBM to fill up disk drives faster than necessary. "Congratulations on your promotion to Vice President, David" he said. I glowed, smiled and instantly forgave him and his colleagues for the hell they have put me through over the last two weeks. I at last understand and realize that all the hassle has in fact been worthwhile.

Welcome to America.

My brother Simon is what in the old days would have been called 'a bit of a wag'. One of his party tricks is to expound philosophically on the ways of the world as seen through the eyes of an old woman. He wrinkles up his face (being older than me he is of course rather good at this) and curls his lips over his teeth to give the impression of having forgotten to put his false teeth in. Most of his sketches then start with "It's a funny ol' life, ininit?"

Well, it's certainly funny on Swissair.

Funny, rather than fun, to be more precise. They are a microcosm of that wonderful country Switzerland, which I've always thought of as beautiful but having three strong national characteristics:
- They are extremely tidy and clean. (By 'they', I mean more than the people, but their towns, the countryside and their houses. This goes further than just buying a lot of soap)
- They have too many languages, each of which is spoken with a truly horrible accent. Their French, with its slow drawl, sounds as if they are still learning it at school (and not getting top marks either), their Italian is impossible, and their German (Gruezi miteinand!) is so different
from Hochdeutsch, that you sometimes hear Germans and Swiss-Germans speaking English together. This is of course to prevent the German from going insane.
- And they are all very keen on money (they also seem to have an awful lot more of it than anyone else, especially me).

I saw two examples of this last characteristic today: in driving over the border from France to Switzerland in my Porsche, I was waved through by the customs man with a smile. I could almost see his mind working, it went something like: "Porsche=money=welcome" or "This is good, this guy has money and he's entering Switzerland. Better instead stop that rusty Opel behind him; they're probably centime-less and hence up to no good."

Going across other countries' borders in the Porsche the customs officials look suspicious and ask me lots of questions. Their thinking is definitely more along the lines of Porsche=money=possible drugs smuggler". (Except for crossing into Italy, where they ask whether they can please sit in the driver's seat, press all the buttons and talk about why having a German car is OK because of Schumacher: I do love the Italians!).

The other example I saw today of the Swiss attitude towards money was in the Duty Free shop in Geneva airport where a tourist made the big mistake of asking why the prices were so high, compared with Brussels Duty Free (the Belgians have a reputation for being a bit tight - like the Scots). Anyway, this was a big mistake. Everyone knows that you must never, ever spend
any money in Switzerland; after all this is a country that thrives on saving because everything is so ridiculously overpriced. (I still remember emptying my wallet in order to buy a coffee at Geneva airport - I won't make that mistake again). The Duty Free sales person looked down her nose at this poor broke foreigner and informed him "the prices are in line with the economic situation in each country, and here you are in Switzerland, not in Belgium". I felt she was about to add "please leave before I call the police to have you arrested for vagrancy" but fortunately the Belgian left without further fuss, having learnt his lesson and with his wallet intact. Not bad.

Anyway, I digress. Why is Swissair funny? Well, mostly, it's to do with the language or rather languages. The convention in Switzerland is to speak in the mother tongue of the person you're addressing rather than in your own (this is very different from the British attitude of speaking English all the time unless you speak another language extremely badly, in which case do not hesitate to torture your hosts with your truly awesome linguistic capabilities). This means
that you can have a lot of fun with the Swissair crew, by switching languages.

You walk on board, and they size you up (they're experts at this after all). "He looks British but he's come from Geneva and his clothes fit - perhaps he's French": "Bonjour, Monsieur" they attempt, "Bonjour" is the reply. Bulls-eye. Clear relief on their faces, another passenger sized up. But then everything goes wrong... "Vous voudriez un journal peut-être monsieur?". "Financial Times". This is not good. No self-respecting Frenchman reads the Financial Times. But his clothes fit - he definitely can't be "un anglais". Perhaps he's American? No, no... not possible. After all, he was not drinking Coke while boarding the aircraft. Need another attempt at finding out who he is. So they consult their on-board computer: "Lives in France, works in America, joined the Swissair club while in Germany; nationality unknown; preferred language unknown". It gets worse...

"Café?"
"Kaffee? Ja, bitte"
"Mit Zucher?"
"Pas de sucre, merci"
"Autre chose?"
"No, thanks"

They look pained as if all those Swiss Francs clinking into their Swiss Bank accounts were not enough. I once got to the point where the crew came as a delegation to me and demanded to know my nationality... I viewed this of course as the ultimate triumph.

And their response when I told them? "But your clothes fit!"

The plane left late from Geneva - not a good start for the German crew and airline that, like its countrymen, pride themselves in their punctuality. There was some relief by blaming "foreign" air traffic control.

I was on my way to Augsburg to collect an award for Phoenix being 'Supplier of the Year'. Unfortunately we arrived late, and the fact that Lufthansa was to blame did not work as an excuse. Perhaps that's the reason that, after giving us the award, they spent the rest of the day
complaining about how late we always are (can't even make it on time for an award so how can they possibly rely on punctual product delivery, that sort of thing).

Apart from being punctual, the Germans have another arguably more attractive attribute - they love beer, and as everyone knows, German beer is the best in the world and following the meeting, I'm now on my way to the capital of German beer drinking - Munich.

The beer is best because it is brewed under an old law called the Reinheitsgebot (meaning Purity Law). This only allows water, hops, malt and yeast to be used in the brewing of beer (you'd be surprised what else gets added in some beers). The yeast becomes active on contact with the water, and changes the malt (or rather the sugar in the malt) into alcohol. The hops add the flavour.

In Munich beer is drunk in huge glasses or mugs (they call them Steine - or stones) that hold one litre, so with the glass the total weight is about 2 kgs. The waitresses can carry as many as 10 of these at one time - it is clearly a question of practice as I have trouble lifting one, let alone
ten (mind you this seems to be a particular problem after I've emptied a few). These waitresses are normally dressed in local costume, which consists of a white frilly apron and a colourful dress with a deep cleavage. Their boobs are pushed up by the dress and by their bra so that a great
expanse of soft curvaceous flesh sticks out of the top. We're not talking Wonderbra here, more Unbelievabra. These dresses are designed to give even a completely flat-chested woman a truly impressive offering that will attract smiles of appreciation from the men.

I have noticed that there appears to be a correlation between the size of these expanses of flesh and the number of Steine that they can carry. Now, before we get carried away here, I did study Biology both at school and at University and I know that there is no way that breasts could be made of muscle - but, as I watch those women with their heaving chests carrying four or five Steine in each hand, I can't help but wonder whether in fact my Biology teacher did not get it wrong after all...