Guilin and the Li River. I know you haven't heard about it, but you have see those beautiful misty and mysterious pictures of these fabulous formations that are the subject of many, many classical Chinese paintings.

The Great Wall - WOW! I did NOT Photoshop this photo as I have so many others. This sky is the real color of the air 56 km outside of Beijing. NOT pretty!

The Terracotta Warriors. I tell you this was a real thrill. I never imagined that I'd see these amazing creations. Each one is an individual.

I'm inserting this photo as a Shanghai photo, not because it is representative of Shanghai, but because it is typical of the theatrical shows we visited. We probably attended about four or five different productions. Many were historical or represented legends or myths of the area. It was very interesting to see the dancing and costumes. Many were very colorful. The music was usually traditional Chinese music or opera. There were some acrobats and contortionists as well.

In order to get to the water villages we had to travel through the countryside. We were most interested in seeing the large single family homes that the farmers lived in. This strip of large homes next to a field is commonplace, not at all unusual in our travels. We were told by our guide that the farmers are a special class of people - enjoying more freedoms. Such as the ability to have more than one child (We read that some families that have a third child will give it to a childless couple in their village.) You see they have much bigger homes, and they enjoy more freedom for individual enterprise in growing specialty crops that bring in a good deal of money to the family (and village, I would assume).