To share the sense of discovery, and lessen the pressure to overnarrate, I offer you clusters of photos with no more than very brief summary captions at the end.
Beijing's Capital Museum 首都博物馆 was full of school children. The subway offers traditional landscape with dam, and etiquette lessons from a clutch of friendly fruits and vegetables. The sky was by turns blue and green. My talk at Renmin University, some of the remarkable student responses to a writing exercise I gave them, and the set-up for a smashing hotpot dinner with X after my talk. Holly Golightly surprised to find herself on a Venetian holiday - or perhaps to be 3-D printed in a minor Beijing shopping mall!
Scenes from the six-hour trip from Beijing to Datong, including everything from ruined fortresses to Italianate housing complexes.
Datong's new-old and virtually deserted
city wall, one gate garlanded with streamers advertising housing estates outside town. A mosque which claims to be China's oldest continually operating - since 628! One of several brand-new old structures. The view from 华严寺 Huayan Temple's pagoda shows the new old city and the condemned old town; a Liao dynasty assembly which somehow survived the destruction of most of the rest of the temple; and someone hiding inside a little shrine in front of Huayan's great old bird poop-spattered hall. A Datong dumpling specialty. Oh, and at the top, red onions at a street market.
To share the sense of discovery, and lessen the pressure to overnarrate, I offer you clusters of photos with no more than very brief summary captions at the end.
