Originally Posted by Duragrouch

China looks immensely interesting to me. I don't feel comfortable traveling there currently for multiple reasons that cannot be discussed here, no P&R on this thread, and things you may not be able to discuss online. Someday, things will be better, or worse.

I was fascinated by an article last year, a huge group of bikers decided spontaneously to bike to one town to eat "soup dumplings", if I recall. The incredible food variety, huge country and so varied. The Tibetan Plateau, *avarage* elevation exceeds 4500m, raising livestock in the grasslands to trade for everything else, too high to grow vegetables. Not a place for someone like me to bicycle distances, maybe a folder on a train for around a town. I would need to choose just one small area of the country, and (in my dreams) hopefully explore that for more than a couple weeks, maybe several months, to be able to get a sense of life there, the food, what people do. Probably a smallish town, with crafts people, that all have not gone to the cities to labor endlessly in factories. I've been reading about a Chinese knife company, their kitchen knives are superior to the typical German brands, due to the more modern (Swedish steel) alloy they use, the Germans have really fallen behind, resting on their laurels.

Lots of dreams. Perhaps not in this life. Just knocking down problems a day at a time. Just finished and filed my income tax forms.