My Trip To China

[Ray Rogers]

I don't think many of you even noticed I was gone for 10 days but, if you did, then you might be wondering why I wasn't on the forums. Well, I tried but it was somewhat inconvenient to do from China since I didn't have a laptop or even a cell phone to take with me.

Here are a few of the highlights from my trip:

http://www.rayrogers.com/china.htm

[Messinger]

Ray, I enjoyed your trip report and pictures. Thanks for sharing and welcome home. Sounds like a great experience.

-Ben

[Buddy Thomason]

Ray - Great report and pictures, very enjoyable. Thanks!

[alexkuzn]

Originally Posted by Ray Rogers

I don't think many of you even noticed
http://www.rayrogers.com/china.htm

We noticed. You are the one of the most helpful guys here.

[cordless101]

thanks for sharing Ray, I figured it'd be entertaining, and it was. Charlie

[Don Robinson]

Wonderful, Ray!!

You're not as handsome as I had thought, though.

Thanks for sharing with us.

[Ray Rogers]

Hope you're not too disappointed Don. On the plus side though, I'm not too old or too fat and I have an athletic girlfriend who is 20 years younger than I am and doesn't seem to mind that my good looking days are (far) behind me ....

[Don Cowles]

Great "trip report," Ray- I enjoyed it very much!

[hammerdownnow]

Very cool! Thanks Ray. Welcome home.

[Gunmen]

I liked your report, just hope that there isn't going to be a new stamp on your knives: Made in china

Just kidding, looks like you had a good time there !

[medit8]

Ray,
I had never even heard of the city you visited and with 10 million people in it, that was a surprise in itself. My wife and I looked at the photo's and found them very interesting. I'm guessing that even with all the congestion there is a very low crime rate and everthing is very clean. I know that there are hundreds of millions of people there who are living in conditions very different than where you were, but these type of environments seem to be where all of China is heading. Thanks for sharing your trip.
Bob

[Ray Rogers]

This is a city that doesn't get a huge amount of tourist trade so you don't hear much about it. But, it does have a very large international airport and American business has strong ties there. All of the larger hotels are set up with elaborate meeting rooms and conferencing systems. You're also right that the city is relatively clean, I found it to be much better than New York City in that regard. Even though it is as large as NYC the traffic was not nearly as bad and no matter where I went in the city I never felt threatened. No signs of gangs, people riding their bikes on the street well after dark, not much obvious police presence either. Nearly everyone I saw was wearing Western clothes and although the music that blasted out of every store front was in Chinese it too was clearly western influenced. Did you know that Rap actually sounds halfway good in Chinese?

Apparently, some of the next Olympic games will be held in ChengDu. I saw quite a bit of construction going on under Olympic flags.

The area around ChengDu is home to the last remaing wild Pandas and the city is very Panda oriented. You see more Panda logos in ChengDu that Lakers logos in Los Angeles. I believe I heard that the world's largest Bhudda statue is in that area too, but that and the Pandas are tourist attractions and I never got around to looking for them....

[TexasJack]

Great photos! Really enjoyed that!

[JediOkie]

Originally Posted by Ray Rogers

Hope you're not too disappointed Don. On the plus side though, I'm not too old or too fat and I have an athletic girlfriend who is 20 years younger than I am and doesn't seem to mind that my good looking days are (far) behind me ....

That's the kind of woman you want. And she can eat hot food that is always a plus. My wife thinks that Pace Mild is hot...

Any idea where to get some of those Yak bites in the states...seems like you might be able to chew on those a bit and then use them to secure your bolsters with.

[Don Halter]

Cool! I'd love to go on a culinary safari across China. I don't know about ribs packed in peppers, though.

Licorice flavored yak jerky. Mmmmmmm...they just don't make snacks like that here anymore. My sister's fix'n to head to China for three weeks. I'll be sure and have her pick me up some yak jerky! Hah............NOT!