| Artist Daniel Davidson, who played Don Jose in Carmen, kept a blog of Scottish Ballet's trip to China, and took some great pics which you can see on our Facebook site! Here's what he had to say: Sunday 17th May As the old saying goes, always take the weather with you. That was certainly the case when Scottish Ballet descended on Shanghai! Arriving at the Park Hotel, a little wobbly from our 16 hour flight, the clouds opened up for us and down came bucket loads of warm rain! Shanghai is just like I imagined. On the bus transfer from the airport to the hotel, we passed through a huge mix of skyscrapers right next to small run-down shacks and many highways. After checking in to the hotel, a group of us decided to brave the monsoon outside and investigate the area. Stomachs rumbling, we found a ramen noodle bar seven floors up one of the skyscrapers. Of course, there was the inevitable language barrier – no one understood a single word we said and vice versa, but we managed to order huge dinners by pointing at the various pictures! Our dinners only set us back around £4 each – I’m gonna like it here! My only frustration is that I can’t seem to make international calls from my hotel phone. I know my mum will be panicking, like mothers do! And so to bed. Shattered after travelling for what feels like a whole week! 
Tuesday 19th May It felt like there were more people at the train station in Shanghai than there are in the whole of Glasgow! Ashley Page, Paul Tyers, Cindy Sughrue, Martina Forioso and I boarded the train from Shanghai to Nanjing and arrived after a three and a half hour journey. I very nearly missed the train after getting lost in Shanghai city centre! Amy [Hadley], Quenby [Hersh] and I had visited the beautiful Yu-Yuan gardens and temples during the day and in a moment of self-confidence, I left the girls and attempted to hitch a taxi ride back to the hotel. However, I got completely lost and no taxis stopped for me! I ran and ran back to the hotel after turning onto a street I recognised and made it to the station on time.  Once in Nanjing, Martina and I discovered a small restaurant near our hotel. Being a smaller, more traditional city than Shanghai, it turns out that no one spoke a word of English and our street maps (in English) didn’t correspond with the actual street names (in Chinese)! At least the menu in the restaurant had some (rather amusing) photographs so we could point at our choices. Tuesday morning, Martina and I get up for an early breakfast before explaining the streets of Nanjing. I managed to pick up a pair of smart trousers from a really run-down old department store so I had something respectable to wear to meet the head of Mercedes-Benz Nanjing (the sponsor of Scottish Ballet’s performance in Nanjing). I haggled with the sales woman and knocked the trousers down from around £20 to roughly a tenner J. Once out on the street, I noticed all the old Chinese men were wearing the same style! I think I managed to pull them off with a bit of panache though (and I hope that the guy from Mercedes-Benz didn’t notice!). It feels great to be in another country representing Scottish Ballet and my country. After the meeting, we met up with the rest of the company when they arrived after a four hour bus journey. We travelled to Nanjing Arts Centre for our warm up class and rehearsal – it was small to say the least, but we managed! It was nice to be moving again after about four days doing no dancing and a 16-hour flight!  Wednesday 20th May Last night was our opening night in China, and what a show!! It felt more like a rock concert than a ballet performance! Ticket touts were selling tickets outside as well as men with glow sticks and whistles and such. Also provided in the auditorium were small tables at the back of the stalls so the audience could enjoy their dinner while they watched! During the show, there was the constant murmur of people chatting and flashes as the audience snapped pictures on their cameras and mobile phones. At one point, I came onstage for the scene where Don José arrests Carmen and I swear a man near the front of the stage whispered “Don José … Don José” trying to get my attention! It made it rather difficult to get into the character, but the sheer volume and energy coming from the audience gave the dancers an extra adrenaline boost. After the show, some of the company went out to experience the Nanjing nightlife. I think some of the ladies of the company caused quite a stir amongst the Chinese men and a few of us were stopped and asked to pose for photographs. It’s amazing the attention we’ve been receiving over here. In the streets and supermarkets, the locals gaze at us in awe since it’s not a regular occurrence to have so many westerners descend on their cities! As I write, we are on the bus on the way back to Shanghai. I think I’m going to enjoy some much needed retail therapy. Monday 25th May As I write, I’m sitting in our hotel room in Beijing after one of the most active days of the tour yet! Since I last wrote, we have danced in Shanghai and have now flown to Beijing. When we first arrived at our hotel in Beijing, I was disappointed to find we weren’t situated at the centre of the action, but a little further out of town. However, disappointments turned into a rather pleasing adventure discovering how to get around the city via the Metro and Bejing taxis. A group of us decided to take a trip to visit Tiananmen Square and the Xuanwu District. Today, however, was by far my favourite day of the tour so far. The company had organised a trip for us all to visit the Great Wall of China. We visited the section of the wall called the Badaling. Even though this section was one of the many to be restored, I still found it really breathtaking. We took the cable car up the side of the wall and spent a good hour or so up there, snapping away on our cameras. An hour wasn’t really long enough to see all that much – we only managed a really small section, but I was thrilled to even be there in the first place. On the way back down, the cable car momentarily stopped mid journey and I felt a lump in my throat (most probably my heart!), but after a couple of seconds we were on our way again. Later in the afternoon, Amy [Hadley], Victoria [Willard], Soon Ja [Lee] and I took a trip to the silk market, situated in Yonganli. By this stage in the tour, the entire company had become excellent and haggling, so finding souvenirs for family and friends wasn’t as much of a challenge as I had anticipated. It was fun to see how little we could buy things for! After a short taxi ride, we went for dinner on a rooftop restaurant in the Northern end of Beijing and compared our bargains before returning to the hotel for a much needed sleep. 
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