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In mid-May, I traveled to China for business on a trip that started in Shanghai for Thursday/Friday business meetings at one of our assembly plants there and then moved to southern China for site seeing on Saturday and Sunday, and business on Monday and Tuesday.

I had been to Shanghai before on travels with my prior job. While Shanghai is an interesting city, I did find that on this trip I was not as overwhelmed with the place as I had been on prior trips. Certainly, living in Seoul which is an equally buzzing place helped. Still, some things I will never cease to be amazed by:

construction cranes everywhere,

traffic which seems to follow no rules

the occasional taxi on the sidewalk

lots of motorcycles on sidewalks

people crossing the street anywhere they feel like it (think human Frogger)

part motorcycle/part mini-pickup truck contraptions mixed on the streets with modern GM, Lexus and VW products

the occasional overloaded wooden cart on the 14 lane wide city street being pulled along by a guy or gal that looks to be around 80 years old

Prices so low you can be gouged by local standards and still think you got a great deal.

Yeap, there's still plenty to grab your attention in Shanghai even on your 4th trip and even when that trip is only 2 days long.

Still, the highlight of this trip had to be our time in Southern China. On Saturday morning, the 2 gentlemen who work for me (BH Cho from Korea and Sandeep Bawal from India) and I grabbed a taxi to Shanghai Hongqaio airport for the 2 hour flight from Shanghai to Liuzhou near Guilin. In Liuzhou, my friend Danean Myers and our mutual friend Tracy (Xiao Lin) from the SGM-Wuling office in Liuzhou, picked us up with a driver and off we went sightseeing.

Travels - China (May 2007)

Tracy made all of the plans as she grew up in the area and as part of her job is given the task of taking folks around the area. While I had heard that this part of China was beautiful and very famous in China, I had no idea what to expect. In fact, all I really expected was to see some Rocky Mountain type mountains and to do a little shopping. Well, wow was I wrong. Tracy's arrangements and the Guilin area far exceeded expectations.

We started with a 2 hour drive by car to Yangshuo. The first thing that struck me on this trip was that I had been told that Liuzhou, where we started from, was a small town in China. However, as the city had heavy traffic, more than a few skyscrapers, and since it was taking us a long time to get out of Liuzhou I inquired as to this small town's population. "Around 1 million" was the answer, "not very big". Hmm, I thought. Welcome to China. Population 1.3 BILLION. 1 million is just a small town. Food for thought.

The second thing that struck me about our drive to Yangshuo was that all the Asian landscape art that I have seen is actually based on a real place and that place is Yangshuo. All the paintings with near vertical "drip castle" mountains rising out of flat rice patty farm lands are not just an artists dream work. They all really exist and are completely amazing to see in person. Most are at least a couple thousand feet high, with rocky outcroppings and lush vegetation. Amazing. The pictures attached don't do them justice. They must be seen in person to be believed.

Once in Yangshuo, things got even better. After a short time to settle in, we meet Tracy and our driver and went off to West Street where we indulged in some touristy shopping. Yangshuo has all the typical Chinese offerings: Knock-off watches (yes, I got one), knock-off handbags, DVDs, chopstick sets, wood carvings, etc. All there. They also have very nice local craft works including some exquisite hand-painted glass work, silk clothing, and jewelry. Very nice.

Yangshuo also expelled another myth, to my great relief, which was that outside of the big Chinese cities (Yangshuo is 300,000 people - tiny place) westerners cannot find food they like - or which likes them. Before leaving Seoul I had repeatedly been told to be prepared for all sorts of crazy meals and be wary of any local offerings.

Now certainly, there were some oddities available. Fresh grilled giant snake anyone? No? It still looks like a giant snake, is that the problem? How about some eel? We'll just grill' em right out of the fish tank and serve them to you whole. Really. No? How about some snake wine with an actual dead snake in the bottle? Bargain price compared to Korean snake wine. Still no? Cooked bees? Oh, come now, where's your sense of adventure? Stop looking so pale.

Anyway, I did find several local dishes to be very pleasing. Teriyaki eggplant is wonderful as was the garlic morning glory (yes the flower). I also enjoyed a very hardy beef and rice dish, and several of the small fish fillets were very tasty if a bit bony (deboning for the customer is unheard of in general in Asia). Of course, probably my favorite meal was the wood fired pizza. One of the best I've had anywhere. Very tasty and, yes. I'm a complete wimp that copped out and had western food for dinner even though our Chinese lunch had been very tasty.

Saturday night, Tracy also took us to an amazing outdoor theater where our local hosts treated us to a performance called "Impressions". This performance is done on the Li River in a 2km long area set between 12 huge mountains with those mountains illuminated and acting as the background for the story. It is actually stated to be the world's largest outdoor theater and I believe it. The Li River itself serves as the stage, and 600 local residents move about on boats and rafts to tell the story of 'Sanjie Liu', a beautiful local girl who because of her incredible singing attracts the unwanted attention of a tyrant and who escapes with her boyfriend when they both turn into larks (what can I say it's a mythical story).

The entire experience is hard to describe. The production is created by the same person who produced the 1988 Seoul Olympic opening ceremonies and who will be creating the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic opening ceremonies. This show is every bit the same quality as those performances. It is visually stunning and while I couldn't follow the story fully (told in Chinese), the music is wonderful to listen to and the performances are stunning to watch. I certainly never expected anything like this to be found deep in a fairly remote part of China.

For those interested in more than the photos I show here, or if you want to read about 'Sanjie Liu' try these links...

Photos...http://www.pbase.com/pschia/image/78155797

Story...http://www.wku.edu/~yuanh/China/tales/liusanjie_b.htm

On Sunday, we checked out of our hotel in Yangshuo (4 star for US $35/night - bargain) and our driver headed us into the Chinese back county en route to Crown Caverns about 2 hours away - only 35 km away as the crow flies, but crows don't have to wind up the mountain roads.

Once again beautiful scenery, but it was also interesting and a bit depressing to see the conditions many of the people of China live in. This route was definitely not the tourist route and hovel would have been a kind word for much of the conditions we saw. In fact, we passed many places where the "home" among the small rice paddies and farm fields was nothing more than a lean-too with plastic hung on it to provide some protection from rain and wind. This was more than a bit of a reality check as we zipped by in our Buick GL8 minivan. Tough to rationalize why some people's lot in life is to scrape by as a sustenance farmer while others have the good fortune to travel the world and see many of the wonders in it. Shortly after returning from this trip I also learned that the performers in the prior evening's show earned approximately $3 a show (2 per night) and that the show was created to bring tourism to Yangshuo which is one of the poorer areas of China. The project has been wildly successful and THE local economy is now growing rapidly. The project is globally recognized as a very creative way for a government to get involved and help raise people out of poor conditions.

Upon arriving at the Crown Caverns which is in very much a small town by anyone's standards I was once again in for a surprise. Crown Caverns has many things to make it stand out from other caves you might visit. First, you travel from the ticket area to the cavern on a "roller coaster" cart that you control the speed of using a joystick throttle. Rickety and a bit of a carnival workers nightmare, but very fun.

Next, the caverns are huge, beautiful and lit by a multitude of colored lights to give them an even more interesting look. They really make Mammoth Caverns in Tennessee look puny. There are supposedly 68 levels to them and I don't doubt it. We wandered about inside for well over 2 hours and we were all shocked at how big they were. Another China stunner.

Also stunning, were the things to do inside the caverns. Not only do you walk around inside but you also travel via boat for about 2 km, travel by train for 2km and ride in a glass elevator up about 100 ft. All of this inside the caves.

After the caves, we were all exhausted and ready for a rest so back to Liuzhou we went. Before heading out we did eat lunch in a local establishment, which was rustic to say the least. Can't say I liked this meal much. We had the eggplant again which was great, but the rest was a bit too much to the local side for my taste. I knew we were in a bit of trouble when Tracy ordered the chicken and the server went out to the back yard, we heard a squawk and a rustle, and back in came the server carrying a dead chicken. I doubt I will ever have chicken quite that fresh ever again.

This pretty much wrapped up the trip although we did spend a nice night with our friend David Robinson at his apartment in Liuzhou. Dave treated us a chicken barbeque (less fresh but very tasty), some beverages and a couple games of pool. It was a very nice way to wrap up an over the top trip to Southern China.

Couldn't have asked for a better time. Heck even the business portion of our trip was successful. What more could you ask for?