So the delayed flight from Hong Kong has meant that my baby will be staying in a hotel in Frankfurt tonight, rather than hopping on the plane to meet me in London tonight.
The poor little thing. I’ll scoop her up in the morning, and make everything okay. Meanwhile, see if you can guess what I’m doing to amuse myself this evening. You’ll never guess. Try though.

• Walk for miles; it’s very, very big.
• Check in early and get an aisle seat so you can stretch your legs on the flight. The last two hours were hell on my arthritic knees, on the way out.
• Check in the Gucci and Prada shops to see if the fakes you bought in China are any good [answer: yes]
• Get a pedicure for HKD135 [but not if you only have 50 left]
• Find a viewpoint and take photos of the thunderstorm and the low grey clouds. Also, expect a turbulent take-off.
• Look at the iPod cases and wonder how much they cost in the UK.
• Find the free internet terminals and look up iPod cases.
• Get extremely impatient. I want to go home now. I want fresh air, food that does not contain pigs’ ears, cows’ stomachs, chickens’ feet, or any other animal part that is strictly NOT food. I want my own bed and I want Pete.

Thank you for listening; China is now over. There will be some photos on flickr later in the week.

Yesterday at lunch I was offered a plate of chilli frogs.

I walked the entire length of the Great Wall of China at the weekend. My feet did hurt a bit by the time I finished, but I still managed to have a quick look around the Temple of Confucious before going back to the hotel.
Prior to that I had toured 80 Chinese villages, and been hey! hello! missy-d in all of them, with the tempting offers of fans and personal name stamps. Shenzhen has absolutely no indigenous culture, but it has a splendid theme park with the appropriate name of Splendid China, which is half mock-up houses, containing either authentic furniture or tat stalls; and half miniature chinese landmarks. The miniature chinese landmarks are somewhat marred by the tower blocks of Shenzhen rising behind them; if only I could show you the photos.
Also, the bushes were singing, which was a little odd. There were speakers hidden in every shrub, piping chinese music to the sightseers. If it hadn’t been getting on for 35 degrees, we would all have been skipping and dancing down the paths. Even with my little pretty parasol, it was damn hot. Parasols are a damn good invention, though.