I've ever watched the scene of stretching noodles on TV, just like some Pizza huts will perform how to make a pizza on the spot, right?

One of the nicer things about autumn is that people start going to hot pot restaurants again. With the cooler weather my friends and I head for our local establishment and tuck in. Just recently our favourite chain has opened branch near where we live. The reason we like it so much is that the staff perform a kind of dance around your table with long strands of noodle. They take a lump of dough and then stretch it until it is several metres long. After that they whirl the noodle strand around and flick it, often just inches away from your nose. It is great fun and a good place to take visitors to the city.




I am amazed by just how many types of noodles there are. It seems every town in China has its own variety; one of my friends gets hers sent up from her hometown specially. Myself, I grew up eating spaghetti, which is an Italian staple, and one story goes that Marco Polo introduced pasta to Italy after his journeys in China. There are lots of different types of pasta of which spaghetti is only one; cannelloni, vermicelli, fettuccine, lasagna and tagliatelle are other popular varieties.



Speaking of Marco Polo reminds me of how much I enjoyed visiting the Marco Polo Bridge in Beijing. It is also called Lugou Qiao and was described by Marco Polo himself. I cycled there and found it a restful, pretty place. The river, it used to cross, has long since dried up but the bridge is lovely with four hundred and eighty five carved lions along its span. Each lion is slightly different and I spent a happy afternoon wandering around and taking pictures. Not very many tourists seem to go there so it isn’t a stressful excursion. On my ride home I passed through some railway yards and was overjoyed to see a working steam locomotive. I love steam trains and my favourite scene from the Harry Potter films is when the Hogworts Express crosses the Glenfinnan viaduct in Scotland. This viaduct is a real viaduct and it was built between 1897 and 1901. Unfortunately my steam engine in Beijing didn’t have such a glamorous role, as it had been relegated to shunting!