Renzo
and Jim with Mr. Shao Hui, the kind gentleman we met on the train who agreed
to show our group around the Luoyang area. This photo was taken in the forest
of stupas at the Shaolin Temple, the birthplace of Kung Fu.
| Renzo
and Jim with Mr. Shao Hui, the kind gentleman we met on the train who agreed
to show our group around the Luoyang area. This photo was taken in the forest
of stupas at the Shaolin Temple, the birthplace of Kung Fu. |
 We
came across these young men practicing kung fu while balancing on poles
in the temple grounds. |
 Coming
back from Shaolin Temple, we stopped at Guanlin Miao, a temple dedicated
to Guan Yu, a hero of the Three Kingdom's period. Here Renzo is trying to
lift the guy's halberd. (He did succeed, by the way.) |
 This
is why Suzhou, one of the most pleasant spots we visited, is sister-city
with Italy's own Venice. The city is laced with canals. |
 Renzo
caught these girls, in Shanghai, I think, out on a sunny day but NOT wanting
to get tan. Notice the hats and the special cape ending in gloves to protect
their arms and hands from getting tanned, still the sign of a peasant woman
in China. |
| We didn't plan on it, but we found ourselves back in Hong Kong after just having been there at Easter. It was truly like leaving China. We got out just before a typhoon made a direct hit. | |
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| Hong Kong is an eye-boggling juxtaposition of the new and the old. Here are modern temples to finance ... | ... and the ancient temple to the gods of war and scholarship. |
 China
is a country full of things ancient. And one of them is Dafo, the Great
Buddha of Leshan, carved out of the mountain 1200 years ago and still the
largest buddhist sculpture in the world. From head to toe, the figure is
over 70 meters high, and Buddha is seated! |
 This
is Yuan. She was our guide for a day's bicycle tour of the area around Yangshuo.
She also prepared us a delicious meal, which is pictured in Renzo's report.
One of few people we met who spoke rather good English, she was really delightful. |
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| When we got out of the cities and into the country or smaller towns, we also got to see the daily life of millions of Chinese. Most of the rice paddies we saw were still cultivated by men, women, children and water buffalo. |
 We
visited many markets, where we saw many unusual things. Not the least of
these was this table where those in need of dental work could have a tooth
pulled, buy a set of dentures or a bridge, or even a single tooth. We didn't
ask about hygiene. |
 Another
market scene: this man was cooking pig's feet with a blow torch. I kid you
not. |
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| Many of the places we visited were on rivers, and where there is a boat, there usually is a family living on board. Here are two such boats. |
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| And where there is water close at hand, why go to a laundromat, especially when there is no such thing? |
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| You may be asking yourself, how do you get around if you don't have a car and don't have a bicycle? Well, in the cities, there often are taxis, but in smaller towns you may have to make do with this, as we did, hoping that the added weight wouldn't make these fragile things break down. |
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