Even most of the airports are new - this is the "other" airport in Shanghai.
I was scolded by the gards for taking pictures inside the security area.

A local farmers market in Shanghai

You would think these pictures were taken from the plane - but no - it was from our hotel room!

China's "Wall Sreet"
Shanghai, China

Buildings in Down town Shanghai
Most have been constructed in the past 5 years
There is still massive construction taking place.

Some new condominiums in Beijing. This is very typical throughout China - I think I have never seen so much comstruction in one country.

This is a new stadium, one that will be used in the summer Olympics. The opening and closing ceremony for the Olympics will, I am sure, be outstanding and worth making a special effort to see.

The next day, after lunch we went to see a Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture Demonstration. Here we had yet another opportunity to purchase local medicine for those ailments that still plagued our tour group. After dinner we had a late flight to Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is a truly amazing city. It is older but much more western than mainland China. The skyscrapers will give you vertigo. The tallest building in China is here – 81 stories. They are building one now that will be taller still. The cost of living here is extremely high. An apartment in a high rise building can cost as much as $20,000 US Dollars a month. We are told that most of the time companies pay this rent for their senior executives. WOW!

We stayed at the Waterfall Hotel. This is the largest man made waterfall in the world. It is 50 meters high, 75 meters wide and lasts for 15 minutes. They are very proud of this project. As we were watching the waterfall, a little girl came up to Hal, patted him on the belly and said "Happy Buda". Hal bought a couple of roses from her and smiled.

Li River

Even on the river there are people trying to sell their wares.

Li River, Guilin

In Xian we visited the City Wall

In Xian we visited the Lacquer Ware Factory
We saw how everything is done by hand.

The Best of Intensions

When we started this trip I had intended to keep a daily diary of our adventures along with pictures and post them on the blog. I had the best of intensions but unfortunately like most well intended tasks, it was not completed as planned. We are presently in Hong Kong and part of our group will return to the states in 2 days. Nine of us will go on the Thailand. Hal is not feeling well tonight so we decided to stay in and not go to the laser light show this time. We can try to make it tomorrow. Tomorrow we free to do what we please. Probably most of the group will SHOP till thy DROP.

Tonight I will try to post some of the highlights of the trip so far. I realize some of the posts may be out of order so please forgive the ramblings. The whole time we were in Mainland China my blog was blocked. Now, here in Hong Kong I can reach the blog but not my e-mail form my Yahoo site. E-mail will download through Outlook but much of the internet is a challenge here.

and then we went to the Tang Dynasty Dinner Show in the evening