Just some extra news (which appears here first - go figure!)

This building is going to be built in Sydney for a university and is already nicknamed 'The Treehouse'. What a stunningly organic design. The following link gives you more detail. http://www.architectureanddesign.com.au/article/Frank-Gehry-unveils-his-Sydney-tree-house/526653.aspx

The second week of the vacation I was having lunch at Sandgate with friends when the most amazing storm hit Brisbane. We have had records broken all over the place regarding this year's cold, heat and rainfall.

The Aussie dollar is again at parity with the Greenback. As we head off to NZ tomorrow, the Aussie $1 is NZD 1.35 - this exchange rate is both good and bad for this country. We'll treat it for the next fortnight as good for us.

My Malaysian friend Malar is experiencing her dream Christmas - in Paris with kids and snow. The Trocadero looks wonderful - unless you actually want to go anywhere!

My favourite incredible picture of the year - in Guatamala - a huge sink hole in the middle of the city. Unbelievable!

Beetles mating (what will Grandpa think?).

Our friends, Frank and Edwina, have their beautiful home featured on the web page of an architecture company. They had their Fairfield home renovated and extended, and this was the main part of the result. Most impressive.

Don't bother reading this Peter - it's about the weather!

Everyone has been surprised by the amount of cold weather in Western Europe, including the locals. I hear first hand from passengers who arrive back after having great inconvenience from the unusually brutal cold weather. This London scene (below) features the famous iconic double decker. At the bottom of this post there's detail of the new replacement double decker due out in time for the London Olympics. Very smart indeed!

A Malaysian teaching colleague has ventured to Europe with her family to enjoy a white Christmas, plus the markets. This, below, was Frankfurt this year. Malar has her dream fulfilled! Exquisitely pretty - but bloody cold!

Even Florence (below) didn't escape the chill. It looks brilliant, though, and reminds me of January this year when Rene and I had snow in Seville for the first time in 54 years - not a traditional scene.

A very 21st Century look for the iconic London bus. Love the way light gets into the stairwells now.

More news from Brisbane...

I don't like Christmas - at all! Not news to my friends and followers, but I have to tell you that it was quite enjoyable this year because it involved loads of dinners at friends' homes and in restaurants plus lots of entertaining in our home. Rene and I have been dining out for the past four weeks with a quite full diary of engagements. There are so very many I can't start to mention them all, but thanks to one and all here in Brisbane for making the season truly remarkable.

Christmas Day was spent doing what I love best - working at the airport as a volunteer. From 7-11am I smiled at hundreds of tired faces, greeted smiling children and ho ho hoed my way through the morning. I raced home and changed, then with Rene we drove across to Capalaba to have lunch with my nephew and his partner. There were folk from both families, and that allowed me to meet a lot of new people as well as my brother Stephen's large extended family. We retired to the quiet of home and an evening of television.

On Christmas Eve we had dinner and drinks at my friends of some 35+ years, Di and Torquil. Their daughter (my god daughter) Amy had left for Wales at the weekend and had taken five days to get there, with two nights in Larnaca, Cyprus, as the flight tried to get to London Heathrow. Even after finally arriving they couldn't get the family from Wales to pick them up, plus the bus booked to replace the pickup couldn't be taken, and there was nowhere for Amy, her partner Alex and baby son Gruff to stay at LHR, so they hired a car and drove to Newport where they stayed with friends of Alex until the rest of his family finally fought their way down the valley to pick them up the following day. All in all it was a memorable trip for them.

Sadly, it has taken this disaster at Heathrow to wake up the operator (Spanish owned) BAA to invest some serious money in snow clearing equipment. Penny pinching by BAA to create extra dividends for shareholders meant something like and extra GBP 570 000 was spent this year following last year's heavy snow. Gatwick spent nearly GBP 10m. Guess which airport coped better? This is the same company (BAA) that failed to heed advice to train all operators at the new T5 - instead deciding, along with BA, to merely train 10% of staff, and they'd train the others. We all know what an unmitigated disaster that was! Yet for 6 months prior the baggage handling system worked faultlessly, yet on opening day ground staff hadn't even been issued with parking permits for the new T5 space, therefore traipsed back to old car parks and got to the terminal too late for the start of the build up of baggage to start piling up. Why? BAA and BA saved money by not training everyone first. I'm sure the Spanish owners lost a lot from that debacle. This recent one will only add to that - how on earth does LHR (let alone Brussels) run out of deicing fluid?


Boxing Day for us was quieter, and I repeated my shift at the airport - this time on departures - but I was quite tired this day. After the first couple of hours I really felt flat, but I still managed to smile a lot and assist, but i was glad when it finished. Rene and I both had an hour's snooze after lunch then drove across town to our American friends Polly and Kit where we had coffee, cake, and later a lovely glass of wine.

It is one year since we arrived in The Netherlands to get married. This Thursday is the first anniversary, and unlike the snowy picture above, we will spend it in a vineyard ensconced within an A frame cottage - the B & B sounds brilliant - there will be photos in the next update. The vineyard is just west of Christchurch on the South Island of New Zealand. We leave tomorrow morning. Whilst there, we will spend New Year's Eve in Christchurch welcoming in the earliest New Year's Day in the world - NZ is exactly 12 hours ahead of GMT, 3 hours ahead of Brisbane.

Happy New Year

This snowy mountain top may appear to be from the northern hemisphere, but it is in fact the top of Mount Wellington, Hobart, the state capital of Tasmania. It was -3C on Boxing Day, and stayed this way most of the day. Down below at sea level the city of Hobart was around 15 - still bloomin' cold!

This photo (above) was taken two weeks ago during a bout of bad weather in the Central Highlands of NSW. This was at the start of summer in Australia this year. A friend mentioned yesterday that I always seem to harp on about the weather in my blog, and I guess I'm reinforcing that conception yet again this post. It really fascinates me.

These are the two new silk doonas I brought back from Shanghai. They are a lovely weight and very sensual to sleep under. This was the first time we put them on the bed, with both pillows having silk covers. Since the first time, we have a silk cover on the top pillow and a regular pillowslip on the lower for actually putting your head on - much nicer (they were too slippery for our taste). Clicking on all three pictures gives greater detail.

This is all for now. A memorable month. I'm looking forward to a bit of a rest in New Zealand, but I'm not counting on it - I love touring and seeing new places and meeting new people.

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM OWEN AND RENE.

The Social Network

I forgot to mention in the last post seeing 'The Social Network' with Rene at the Dendy, Portside. It was some ten days ago, but it still sticks clearly in my mind. A very interesting film full of people I'd rather not meet in real life. The lead character (all are real people portrayed in this movie) is autistic, and although never mentioned by name, this characteristic pervades his reaction to what's happening around him and the way he interacts with others. I'm assuming the events and characters are portrayed quite realistically, and if so it must have been surreal seeing oneself played in a film that starts around 2003. Please see it, you won't be disappointed.

One week until the summer vacation!

Here in Australia summer is upon us, whereas in Europe winter is very evident indeed. The picture below is from the south of The Netherlands, Son, and is of the back garden of Rene's sister. We were there nearly a year ago in the snow. I suspect snow might be somewhat warmer than just frost and ice. This was Saturday afternoon.

Here in Brisbane we have had the most unusual weather, with persistent showers for days and days. In recent years it would have been very hot, but like today, a minimum of 19 and a max of 26/27 is quite typical of the past couple of months. We've already clocked up the wettest September/October in 38 years. I still prefer our weather to Europe's.

The once every two years Ashes Test series is on again, and Brisbane is hosting the first test match. If you don't know, it's cricket, and the Holy Grail of cricket is contested every two years with the two countries taking turns. Each match lasts five days, there are five 5 day Tests, and fans queue from before 7am to enter the grounds and prepare for the 10am start. Rene drove past 'The Gabba' last Thursday at 6:30am and the first fans of 40 000 were lining up to enter the grounds nicknamed 'The Gabbatoir'.

The airport has handled thousands of fans for The Ashes plus this weekend 5000 Schoolies (students who have finished Year 12 high school) flying into Queensland for the annual rite of passage. Most head towards the Gold Coast. Yesterday they were like lambs, probably because they'd got up really early to get to the airport in Sydney or Melbourne before jetting north to us. Needless to say Brisbane Airport is increasing passenger numbers every month - great for Brisbane, even greater for the Queensland economy.

Catholic schools finish the year a week earlier than state schools. I finish on Thursday for around seven weeks. I'll continue doing volunteer shifts at the airport because that is enjoyable, but I want to get stuck into a very overgrown and weedy garden. The incredible amounts of regular rain have ensured that much of what was planted less than two years ago needs a very, very heavy pruning and shaping.

To break up the vacation Rene and I are heading to the South Island of New Zealand for our first anniversary. We fly into Christchurch, the centre of a 7.1 earthquake last September, for two nights at a B&B just west of Christchurch, located in the middle of a vineyard. Nearby is the Langdale Winery where we are to have lunch on our anniversary day (30th). That evening we dine with the hosts. On New Year's Eve we move back into Christchurch for the evening's big concert in Cathedral Square followed by fireworks. We are staying at the Crowne Plaza, the largest hotel in the city and easily escaped damage in the earthquake. New Zealand builds to take into consideration its nickname of 'the shaky isles'.

We have a further eight nights to fill in, but we have a hire car from Day 1 and can go anywhere. I know that we'd like to go to Milford Sound, the Franz Josef Glacier plus the cities of Dunedin and Invercargill.
Rene is planning the last nights, so it should be exciting since he's been there before, but I never have. I've been twice to the North Island, but everyone says the South Island (or Middle Earth as it has become known) is like the whole of the world's seriously impressive scenery rolled into one place. Can't wait!

This final week is crazy - Tuesday night is trivia and dinner (as usual), Wednesday is the Dutch Alumni Christmas Dinner at Portside, Thursday night we're at the Greek Club for a 3 course dinner, Greek cooking lessons, dancing lessons plus ouzo. Friday I dine with one of my schools at a favourite restaurant of mine for lunch, and Friday evening cake and coffee at a friends home. No doubt next weekend will be busy, like this one, where I did a long shift at the airport and today we had lunch out at Sandgate and drinks at a new watering hole there - the old Sandgate post office, now a lovely bar and grille.

I have not mentioned the tragedy of the lost miners of New Zealand, the Royal nuptials announced this week, same sex marriage law crawling towards some positive resolution hopefully soon or the delightful opportunity to meet up with a friend who has gone to San Francisco to marry and set up home with her new husband. I haven't even mentioned that a family of dear friends who go to Europe every year for three months in their motor home kept in England have returned with joyous tales of their travels.

Finally, dear Rene joins me in loathing the season of joy soon to be upon us. As a counter to this, I purchased two spare tickets from friends to join them at the Concert Hall on December 11 to enjoy 'The Spirit of Christmas'. Rene was playing the poker machines when I was offered the seats, so he wasn't consulted. He was somewhat surprised when I told him upon his return. The Queensland Symphony Orchestra, choirs and singers will force feed us both for a couple of hours. I intend to ply the Dutchman with plenty of spirit before the event. He'll be 'ho, ho, hoing' throughout the night - and so will I.

2011 visitors

NEWSFLASH Rene and I have been invited to join his Dutch sister Claartje and her husband Jan on Straddie in October next year to celebrate their third anniversary at the restaurant, Amis, where they had their reception in 2008. Seriously exciting news! That bouquet was thrown into the sea as they left Straddie last time as a gesture to encourage their return to the island. We look forward to it happening.

School wins $30 000!

One of my schools, Mary Immaculate at Annerley, won a state wide competition for staffroom improvements run by the Queensland Teachers Credit Union. There were over 1170 schools entered, and 60 000 votes cast. It was done on line. We got not only our small community (only 127 children) of parents to vote, but by the driving force of one tenacious staff member (bless you Sharon!) we garnered help from many other sources too, including a Face book campaign. One person got her sister, a uni lecturer, to have each member of her class vote on their laptops prior to the lecture beginning, and I requested help from all 95 Airport Ambassadors. You could vote as often as you liked, but only from the one address, and I have three email addresses, so I voted three times. Anyway, last Friday we were announced as winners on World Teachers Day and have been excitedly suggesting just what we can do with the money. http://www.srfi.com.au

Ollie from Hong Kong

I recently had Ollie, from HK, join me for a shift on Arrivals at International. She is finishing a Masters here in Brisbane involving tourism and administration, and was the most lovely person to work with. It was terrific having her on hand to help with Cantonese speaking passengers - I usually have to seek assistance from other Ambassadors when I strike a completely non English speaking passenger with a problem.

This morning I had a breakfast at the airport as part of the annual 'Passion Days' run by BAC (Brisbane Airport Corporation). These days are designed to connect the very many people and divisions working at Airport who almost never meet. Today was the second of four breakfast meetings. It was a wonderful opportunity for us to be exposed to a large cross section of Airport. The six Ambassadors this morning left with a gift bag containing, amongst other items, a cloth cap (with BNE Airport on it of course) and a very cute kangaroo dressed in old pilot's clothing, manufactured for the RFDS (Royal Flying Doctor Service). I continue to average two four hour shifts a week and enjoy it very much. This week one of our Ambassadors flew out on the inaugural service of China Southern from Brisbane direct to Guangzhou (old Canton). It is Asia's largest airline and third largest in the world - a member of Star Alliance. Its three flights a week will expand next March to seven and bring in a much welcomed boost to our tourism.

This week I caught up with Kay back from Greece and England and plan on catching up with Peter and Bernadette, back from their annual three months in Europe. Karen, our friend who has moved to California, is back and we get to see her around the 8th. Our other Kay, the one I went to Shanghai with last month, is staying tomorrow night before heading off to NZ - so it's all been go around here with friends coming and going. Last weekend we entertained a chap from North Queensland we met some time ago, and with him were two guys from Vancouver here at a conference. It's a never dull around here.

says it all!

The US Mid Term elections have been and gone. $4b later, the nation has decided they want change faster than 21 months of Democrat control could produce. I guess I can understand that from the nearly 10% unemployed, but the rest? Sanity has eluded Capitol Hill for a while, and blame belongs at the feet of both parties. The mess cooked up by the Republican Administration over 96 months yet not sorted by 21 months of Democrats, therefore the great American public in its wisdom decides to put back control to the folk who

presided over the initial debacle...weird logic to me. Welcome to Gridlock Central aka Washington DC. God help us all!

Art in Shanghai from Brisbane

I only found out today that many public art pieces at the enormous Expo site in Shanghai were in fact created by a Brisbane company. It does work around the world, all managed from Brisbane. They won an award last night, that's how I found out. Go to
http://uapmarker.com.au
to see the Expo works plus other sites around the world where this energetic Brisbane company is operating.

Chile to India then to Scotland

Terrific news about the miners this week in Chile. Remarkable tale, with more to come. Fascinating to watch and listen to the people associated with the rescues.

The 19th Delhi Commonwealth Games have finished. I only watched the opening and closing ceremonies for all the colour and movement, with the coverage with commercials on TV being too annoying to watch on a regular basis. Glad they went off without any major hitches, but worth A$15b? Not at all sure!

Next up its the Scots with Glasgow 2014 - it won't be as colourful or noisy, but it will be well run and focused solely on sport. They also know how to have some fun. Good luck Glasgow!

Rain, rain, go away....

This picture (above) taken today in the Central Highlands of NSW.

Over 5" of rain (154mm) fell on Sunday night and early Monday leaving floods across Brisbane. The pictures above and below are of a road I use to go to work. There was gridlock everywhere on the Northside of Brisbane with significant roads cut. I spent 35 minutes going just one block from my house before I turned around and drove back home. The rains have returned, but not as heavy, and the winds have picked up and the temperatures have gone a bit chilly (Queensland chilly, not Europe chilly). Similar rain at Uluru this week has seen the Rock smothered in white rushing waterfalls. Oh, it also snowed today in parts of NSW and Victoria. Mid October? Crazy!

Sad news

Last Sunday was the 8th anniversary of Mum's death - a somewhat sad day, but what a brilliant (almost) eight years I've had since then with Rene. At 8:30pm the phone went and a friend of mine, Neil, from Canberra rang to say that his partner of seven years had died of a brain tumour. He was just 65 and had recently retired from the Commonwealth Public Service. Rene and I introduced these two fine fellows after Easter of 2003. Neil at that time was in Toowoomba and Gavin in Canberra. We met Gav in Canberra on a brief Easter holiday and then mentioned his name to Neil when we returned. Neil moved to Canberra in February 2004 whilst we were in The Netherlands. Earlier this year they were two days off leaving on a much anticipated trip to Europe when Gavin had an episode that warranted a trip to the doctor. The news wasn't good. His funeral is in Canberra on Monday. I didn't sleep much Sunday night.

Funny commercials

Air New Zealand has done it again! After some positive and negative reviews, an ad campaign has gone viral on the net. These ads never go to air on TV, but thousands of people have viewed them on line. I love them! There's also a Virgin Atlantic one which is pretty good too. Oh, Rico has his own Facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=121207391268744&ref=mf

with a very funny 'interview' included - clever guys, these folk over at AirNZ:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HLxzevh3NQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZLBY3lYtsQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIUvssYKfzY&feature=channel

Parity reached (briefly)

I mentioned last weekend the dollar nudging parity with the Greenback? Well, this morning it briefly broke through the barrier, but retreated a slight amount - currently A$1 = US$0.994c.

Dollar

The Australian dollar has almost reached parity with the Greenback. This week it broke a 27 year old record - established in the year the dollar was floated. It touched (briefly) US 99.7c.

This past fortnight I travelled with it at A$1 = 6.5 yuan and S$1.30 making overseas travel the most inviting proposition for many Australians in decades. In Shanghai I bought at the corner shop across from our hotel two Magnum ice creams, a 1.5L bottle of water, 600mL bottle of orange juice and a small box of tissues for 19.80 yuan - that's about A$3.20. For me, shopping in Shanghai was like I remembered Singapore 33 years ago.

Rain, rain, rain!

It has done little else here these past few days. Odd weather pattern, so different from the usual. The Sunshine Coast has had 250mm+ in one day and the rain isn't going away any day soon. Here in Brisbane we've had 60+mm Thursday and 45+mm Friday, plus Saturday and today it continues to rain - but not quite as heavily. Three years ago our water storage was at 17%, today it is 100% and overflowing.

Shanghai Expo 2010

Because of the back to front way Blogger publishes, the end of my short trip to China is pictured first - go figure! Oh well, the trip ended last week with two nights in Singapore to reduce the drag of a long journey. I hadn't stayed in Singapore for 11 years, so there were new things to see. Went up the world's biggest wheel at night to see the splendour of modern Singapore. The location of the Singapore Flyer is on reclaimed land - some 100sq km of extra land in Singapore since my first visit in 1977. They have plans for a further 100 by 2030. I wasn't going to buy anything (having spent up big in Shanghai) but while my friend Kay was shopping for a watch, I wandered into a men's shoe store and came out with a beautiful brown pair of Italian shoes - OK, the Australian dollar is really strong right now and they were a bargain. There were no wide fitting shoes to be seen in Shanghai.

This church is in 'Culture Street' Duolun Lu, Hongkou District, and was built in 1928. Great Virtue Christian Church sits beside our hotel, in an historic part of old Shanghai north of The Bund.
This area was once the American Concession and merged with the British Concession to form the International Settlement. By the 1930's it had become a Japanese enclave and was home to many Leftist writers and artists.

This bus is at Expo, but a route exists on the main Shanghai side of the river where it runs across the city in a dedicated route. These are electric, but don't have large batteries with long charges - these are super capacitor buses which drive along dedicated routes stopping at bus stops that have something like a pair of metal skis overhead. This is an electric rail. The bus stops for 30 seconds, picking up and dropping off passengers, and while it is there a T bar pops up from the middle of the roof and gets a super charge of electricity strong enough to take it a maximum of three stops. This is a joint project between Volvo and Sunwin. At Expo they had regular electric buses with long life batteries travelling through the river tunnels, but this super capacitor bus was the first time I'd ever seen one in operation - most impressive.

Shanghai is very progressive and modern. The streets are clean, spitting and smoking in the streets was rarely seen, and a spirit of happiness and harmony seemed to prevail to these Western eyes. Crowded? Well, 20 million in a small area leads to crowding and of course the familiar chaos on the roads, but nothing seems to falter - I witnessed one minor accident between a cyclist and a scooter (lots of shouting and witnesses looking on silently) and no vehicles appeared to have dents or scratches. Amazing when one considers the apparent chaos of cars, scooters, bicycles (few) and buses all going in every direction possible at the same time.

A large Railway Union Australian man we met at Expo said that as a taxi tried to go across his pedestrian crossing lines as the little man was green, he turned and sat on the bonnet of this taxi until his wife had crossed - he just looked at the driver, and the people stopped and stared too. This guy was tall and built like a dunny! I'd love to have seen it. The pedestrians have to dodge the traffic, even when the lights say 'go'. Interesting experience!

The Australian Pavilion at Expo stood out for a few reasons: a) we didn't have to queue - just show our ID that we were Australian, b) it was the only pavilion I saw where Nationals from the country spoke in Mandarin to the locals - both in the queue to get into the theatre, and the jollying up of the audience once inside - oh, and both were mature Aussie males -, c) the displays entertained and engaged many spectators at the one time (large theatre) and finally d) the only presentation where spontaneous applause broke out from the audience.

Indigenous art was on display, but sadly few Chinese stopped long enough to read and soak up the detail. Impressively presented.

Above and below are just two examples of the large public art on display outside the pavilions. The area of expo spread across both sides of the river, with ferries, bridges and tunnels connecting them. there were free electric buses going through the tunnels as well as a Metro line with a station terminating in the very middle of Expo. Since 1997 Shanghai has built 12 Metro lines, with three more under construction.

Queues - many, many queues! We were warned, and yes, it still was a surprise - not so much the size of the queues but the rudeness of the Chinese. Pushing, shoving and obvious skipping in front of you is something the Japanese don't do, and neither the Taiwanese, and I think in HK they don't either, but in China the manners of queuing are little known or understood. We shared the site with 577 000 visitors on the first day, and as 'little' as 370 000 on the third, and some queues were as long as 4 hours - we never queued longer than 20 minutes therefore we didn't enter the bigger, flashier pavilions. Some required a free ticket issued from machines near the gate, but we were never there early enough to bother trying to get one. On the third day I even elbowed twice people behind me, and I have no idea if they were male or female - all I know is that I'd had enough. NB The next expo is in Milan - now, I expect style and manners plus a great show for the public. Our Brisbane expo in 1988 was fun - lots of street performers, shows and fireworks every night. Shanghai had none of that. Yes, shows were on, but seemed to be booked out early or not on general view. No fireworks (none!). Seriously, expo was a giant business convention - and boy! the Chinese were doing business BIG TIME.

Our local street was calm (see below) with no pushing or jostling, and courtesy from everyone there. I loved Shanghai, and the streets were busy but not without order. The locals were all courteous, and of course we had our fair share of photos taken with locals and visitors alike. Foreigners are not thick on the ground so we often were stared at, usually discreetly.

If you click on the picture above, you can see two old ladies just sitting and chatting. Shanghai has old and new side by side. Liked it a lot.

There are statues along the road, usually slightly larger than life. Many hundreds of locals live everyday life surrounded by an enormous modern city, yet a step aside into Duolun Lu brings a whole different world.

My friend Kay (above) chatting with an elderly gentleman.

We went on a river cruise along The Bund and saw the fabulous modern skyline. It was wet, hence the somewhat milky photos, but it was still most impressive.

Below are a couple of pictures from a garden preserved in the middle of old Shanghai.

The tea rooms in the gardens are famous, even having entertained Queen Elizabeth.

Kay, below, sitting in front of yet another banquet. This was a lunch in a very smart expo restaurant. Delicious, yet capable of feeding four - it was a set menu for two.

The best pavilion we saw was on the smaller site on the city side of the river. Put on by the Shanghai Museum, it featured the theme 'footprints of man' whereby it covered across four enormous floors the relics and remains from a cave 2500BC up to 17thC Netherlands.

Italy and Greece featured (of course) with a marvellous rendition of Troy (below).

From our 17th floor room we looked down upon 'Culture Street'.

Kay had left early on the first day at 6pm but I stayed on for a further three hours and saw quite a few pavilions where the queues had subsided. The folk below were singing songs of farewell to the many guests wearily trudging towards the public transport awaiting. The bus home was just 2 yuan (about 30c) and lasted half an hour. very efficient service.

Some night views of expo. Somehow I couldn't capture the brightness and radiance of the lighting, but rest assured it was very bright and extremely colourful.

The Chinese Pavilion was very impressive, and most of it was hidden beneath the main structure underground.

Sexy tango in the Argentine Pavilion (from the wine bar above the floor).

The Netherlands Pavilion was a disappointment - quite impressive to look at, but it missed the mark by not addressing the issue of large crowds. Called 'Happy Street', it was a spiral walk through Holland, but the rooms (houses) on display sometimes just had a few items in them with little explanation, or a slit in the window where only two at a time could look in to see what was going on. With the immense crowds it was a waste of time trying to look in the slots - and as for the theme 'Better Cities, Better Places', apart from a dredging tool and some water management things, I couldn't see the point of it. Maybe a Dutch person who was there could fill me in on it?

UK Pavilion (above) and the Danish one (below). Didn't (couldn't) go into either. The Little Mermaid looked larger than when I last saw her in Copenhagen.

The Australian Pavilion had one of the few outdoor entertainment areas on the site. I caught a couple of sets from an Australian group whilst enjoying a pie and a can of 'cold' VB - often in Shanghai the beer wasn't truly cold, but it was at the Australian Pavilion.

See the little people below the Chinese Pavilion? Now you realise how enormous it was.

The United Arab Emirates was an impressive sweeping shell. When we tried to get to see inside on the third day it was closed for the morning because of a visiting dignitary.

Remnants of old Shanghai still are evident, like this street on which the former British Embassy is situated.

New Shanghai sits across from the old. Pearl Tower (above) and the interior of the restored Peace Hotel (below) straddle both sides of the river. Both are equally impressive.

A gallery in what is known as the French Quarter. Now it is a bustling precinct full of shops, galleries and history.

Not everywhere in Shanghai is crowded. This is a most attractive street in the French Quarter.

#108 (below) on the left hand end of this terrace row is where the very first meeting of the Chinese Communist Party was held. An old lady sat outside knitting and watching, and when troops arrived, the members all left from a side exit into the nearby lane.

Along with every city in the world, there has been a lot of smartening up of the local areas, and this park was one of countless green vistas within the city.

I went a little crazy in the silk factory and bought two single silk filled doonas for our beds plus woven silk covers and pillow cases. Throw in two silk shirts (dark navy) and I contributed greatly to the economy of Shanghai.

If single silk worms create a cacoon the fibres can be extracted into single threads and woven - my shirts are made from these - but should two silk worms create the one cacoon, these fibres are mixed up and can't be extracted for spinning, therefore these cacoons are used to make silk padding that fills doonas as well as padded jackets. The picture above is of ten cacoons pulled apart, and below the workers pile one on top of another until the desired weight or thickness is arrived at. Both my doonas are 1250g, so you see a seriously large number of cacoons are used in each doona. These doonas are sold by weight, not dimensions.

The fibres are free of dust - great for allergy sufferers - and don't require quilting because the layers don't move inside the cotton cover. The doona is warm in winter and cool in summer.

The factory was an old one, but the products were very new and up to date.

My travel agent here in Brisbane is from Shanghai. He is the man photographed below. His sister (above) lives in Shanghai. He was in the city with a tour group from Townsville plus another group of students from Brisbane. He assisted us in joining the others from time to time to do extra things that were fascinating in our short time in Shanghai. Visiting a pearl factory/shop was something I'd never think of doing, but I found it fascinating.

We had just arrived that morning from Brisbane and (below) we are already socialising and having a hot pot banquet with new friends. I was quite adept at using chop sticks, but occasionally my hand tired by the end of the meal and I resorted to a spoon.

We end at the beginning - this is the MagLev train from Shanghai Airport. It could travel the 33km to the city outskirts in 8 minutes at speeds of near 470km/h, but every second train runs slightly slower, and ours never exceeded 301km/h. It's still amazing to think you travelled on a train that uses magnetic levitation to lift and propel it along the tracks.

Shanghai was amazing, and I really loved the city and its people. I'd love to explore more of China, but I'd never bother going especially for an Expo - it was a disappointment after the one here in Brisbane. We Australians know how to enjoy ourselves. We know how to throw a party and invite the world. We realise that there is a multi dimensional approach to celebrating life and living. Look out for the next expo in Milan in four years time - I'm guessing the Italians know a thing or two about celebrating life!