Impression

The growth and dynamism of China. There is construction everywhere. Beijing is a government city. Shanghai is a much more dynamic commercial city. Have a 100 ruble note with a picture of Lenin from a 1992 trip to Russia. That banknote is worthless today. A 100 RMB banknote has value.

The Forbidden City as government that was built in 1420 and was static for 500 years. That is never true in the West.

Dust. The States also did too much agricutlure into dry areas.Pollution control comes after a country becomes rich.

Ability to build a damn Brutality and commonness of Buddism practices in Tibet. We saw three auto accidents in Tibet. The last we took an old woman who had been hit by a car to a hospital. She screamed in the back. The hospital was maybe 15 km away. The hospital had no doctors on arriving. The New Year's flags and pray wheels are everywhere in Tibet.

Some sensible flexibility on scheduling at times. For example, in Tibet, we did a day outing to see a very pretty holy lake and a snow capped mountain. This was scheduled for the last day in Tibet. The last day was cloudy. The first 2 days were clear. The 7200 meter
snow capped mountain was never seen. Go with the clear weather when it is there and shift the schedule around. In Tibet one should see one Himalayan peak.