Hong Kong is hot and humid but it sure is beautiful! Good food, shopping and amazing energy in the city.
A lot of the shots below were taken from "The Peak", a lookout accessible by a tram that climbs up the side of Victoria Peak, a large hill in the middle of the city.
Next stop Bangkok and a reunion with one of my closest friends, Ms. Darcia Sherwood who is flying halfway around the world to see the sights with me! Yay!!
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_Tram
Sadly, this is my only picture of Shanghai. As you can see it is raining, it rained whole time I was there which was only a day and a half. I did manage to get to the Shanghai Museum which was very interesting. More info on that below
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Museum
Xi'an is a beautiful ancient city, it is a much smaller city than Beijing (thank god!) but still quite large, we are talking about China standards here! Outside Xi'an are the famous 8,000 Terracotta Warriors created to guard a former emperor's tomb. Quite impressive! Also included are pictures from the Giant Wild Goose pagoda, a Buddhist temple.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xian
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_warriors
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Wild_Goose_Pagoda
My final day in Beijing I visited the emperor's summer palace and the 798 art district, a former industrial area turned artist studio. Next stop Xi'an!
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Palace
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/798_Art_Zone
The portion of the Great Wall I visited is about 2 hours outside of Beijing. One the way we stopped at a Cloisonne factory. Cloisonne is a process in which they make painted pottery. They start with a fired clay pot and then hand apply a copper pattern to the outside of the pot, apply ground minerals in various colors mixed with water are into the pattern effectively painting the pot. Next the pot is fired in a super hot given for 3-5 minutes. This is process is repeated 6 times, finished product below.
The Great Wall speaks for itself. It is a great big wall in China. Very cool!
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall_of_China
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloisson%C3%A9_enamel
