Author Archives: boogkb

BTC Chongching. Double happiness Warm and sunny Early plane ride to Chongching and the giant pandas. With mountains on all sides it was heavily bombed by japan but not occupied. Remained the capital from 1937 to late 1945. Now the … Continue reading →

BTC Xi’an university Sunny warm Day started with a lecture on Chinese history, from neolithic times, Oracle bones and onto lao-zi (600-500 bce) and dao, the way, also the time of confucian thinking. Good story about Clinton in Xi’an visit. … Continue reading →

IBTC Xi’an culture and warriors Partly cloudy Good morning Chinese do not say good morning. Nodding of head. Thank you Chinese do not applaud after a show, we have seen this non event after each of the two shows to … Continue reading →

BTC X’ian Rain then sunny Grand mosque visit in the minority district, Muslim of course,followed by a walk in the bazaar and sampling of the street breads. Lots of interesting foods but we had a planned Muslim restaurant meal ahead … Continue reading →

BTC Luoyong to X’ian Might be called partly cloudy High speed train to X’ian. Reaches 200 mph but takes a while to get to full speed. Train is somewhat of a local making a number of long stops. Another large … Continue reading →

Concert with these and other specialists, see flickr. Bamboo wind Pipa, a four stringed lute Zither, 21 strings Erhu, two stringed fiddle Bamboo and gourd minority people’s instrument Xum, pottery, one of the oldest instruments in the world, over six … Continue reading →

BTC Luoyong Overcast Morning in the central square. Exercises are popular and less costly than gyms. Various forms of tai chi, dancing, swords, whips, etc etc. Some pictures and short videos -hopefully on Flickr. The whip master a real treat … Continue reading →

BTC Beijing to Luoyang via Zhengzhou Seriously overcast. Train ride Zhengzhou, then by bus to Luoyang (12 km from the Longmen Grottoes, cave temples), crossing the yellow river. Clearly a travel day, 430 miles or so, most by train, through … Continue reading →

BTC Beijing Cool and as usual overcast. Some rain. As a side note. Google plus is blocked by the Chinese firewall on my ipad. Works fine on the Android. Some of you may even have seen the post and pics. … Continue reading →

For the Terry Prachett fans this is, unfortunately, not about “the luggage”, maybe his greatest character. No, it is the story of preparing to take a train. It is Friday morning as I write this. On Saturday morning we take … Continue reading →