Mike
The "2 1/2 hour flight" (leave 3:35 PM Shanghai, arrive 6:10 PM Atlanta) actually took 14 1/2 hours. We got in uneventfully, ready to try to adjust for the jet lag and get back to normality.
When, back in Atlanta, I unloaded my carry-on bag, I finally found my stuffsack's TSA lock at the bottom.
By my calculations:
Total cost of trip: $1066 (airfare to and from China); $186 (visa and costs to obtain visa); $490 (3 internal flights); $1040 (all else, including hotels, railroad tickets, tourist attractions, food, gifts, etc.).
The test of a good traveling companion is in part whether you are on speaking terms at the end of the trip. But more important it is what each brings to the other's experience and understanding.
Curtis brought three invaluable strengths to the trip. First, as a Buddhist, he brought an intimate knowledge of the history and practice of Chinese Buddhism, which informed the organization of the temples and pagodas, and brought meaning to the sculpture and the various Buddhas and supporting Buddhist sculptures.
Second, his knowledge of Chinese history was crucial to my understanding of what I was seeing. Before the trip, I knew that in 221 BC the first emperor Qin began his rule, that he unified the country, but that roughly 15 years later he died, and there were lots of dynasties thereafter. That is not very sophisticated, and Curtis' detailed knowledge helped keep things in place. We visited four former capitals of China - Xi'an, Luoyang, Kaifeng, and Nanjing. Knowing when each was the capital, trying to picture what China might have been like when Kaifeng was the capital, say, is a crucially important factor in coming away with much of anything.
Third, his taste buds are much better than mine. I experience the same thing compared to my daughter, who is trained as a chef, and can really taste things. I just don't have the same experiences. It is important to have someone able to tell me what I am tasting. For example, in Chengdu, he pointed out that the texture of the cucumber mimicked the texture of the eel. Of course, some times, like in Kaifeng, Curtis told me that the local beer was badly brewed, for very specific reasons, but I drank it anyway, noting that it tasted a little different from the other brews we had had.
If I go back in several years, with my wife, (not in July or August) I may see some of the same things, but it won't be the same trip. I thank Curtis for the trip he made for me.
TRAFFIC AND TRANSIT
Chinese cities tend to be huge. The Lonely Planet guidebook routinely does not include information on cities in China with less than 1 million people, unless there is some overriding tourist draw. Recall that our fast train stopped 4 times between Nanjing and Shanghai, and not one of those cities was in the Lonely Planet guidebook.
Furthermore, before 1990, even the largest cities had not a whole lot of car traffic - huge numbers of bicycles, motorized bicycles, taxis, pedicabs, motorized pedicabs, etc. That (of course) began to change rapidly, and now China has a LOT OF AUTOMOBILES, and is poised to get a WHOLE LOT MORE. THAT MEANS TRAFFIC AND LOTS OF IT.
Before 1990, according to the best information I can get off the internet, there were only 3 subway lines in China - two in Beijing from 1969 and 1987, and one in Tianjin from the early 1970s.
At some point in the mid 2000s, the whole country changed. The word came down that cities should build subways, and so they did.
Beijing and Shanghai were the first to change.
Beijing started to build, and had three lines by the mid 2000s. It opened two more for the Olympics, plus a line to the Airport (before 1977, only Chinese could ride the subway, and then only with letters of introduction from their employer). One more is to open next month (9/09), bringing the total to 7. Beijing has plans for 24 lines, some of which are already under construction.
Shanghai really did it big. It opened its first line in 1995. It opened 3 more by 2003, and a fifth in 2005. Then in 2007, it opened 3 more, and extended 2 lines. In 2010, for the WorldExpo, it will open 4 more, and extend 3. If you have kept track, this comes to 12 lines, which puts Shanghai up there with London, New York, Paris, and Moscow. Shanghai has plans for 18 lines, some of which are already under construction.
Of the cities we visited, Shanghai, Kunming, Chengdu, Xian, and 
Nanjing all have subway lines under construction. Nanjing will open its second line soon; the other three are working on their first lines. Everywhere we went, there was construction in the city. At least 20 cities in China are building subway lines now. Of course, in China, you don't need an environmental impact statement; the subway planning group announces where the 
subways will go, and construction begins. (I don't know this to be a fact, but it sure seems that way. What European or American city is working on 7 subway lines at once? We all know of cities where the construction takes decades or more - e.g., the Second Ave Subway in Manhattan.)
There is a race in China between the car and the viability of public transit. China's cars get much better mileage than American cars. Comparatively, cars are not so expensive to purchase, but the license plate, without which you cannot operate the car, may cost in the $5000 - $10,000 range. Also, there are really high tolls on the good highways.
It seems that, with very high living densities, very few places to park the car, and impossible traffic (even now), urban car ownership is a no-win proposition. We found that buses and subways (where they exist) come along pretty much whenever you need them, and take you nearly anywhere you need to go.
In most cities in the world, the car is winning, at the expense of public transit. Maybe in China public transit, and specifically, separate grade public transit, will win.
WIND FARMS
There is another issue in China - energy - that has spawned a huge race. China has enormous needs for energy. Hence, it has been building coal plants - maybe 500 per decade. The result has been that air is not breathable in some parts of China - especially Beijing. That is a problem. So China is closing down some of the worst coal plants, and building much more efficient plants. But they are also building wind farms. Lots and lots of wind farms.
NYTimes Jul 14, 2009:
"This year, China passed the United States as the world's largest market for wind energy. It is now building six wind farms with a capacity of 10,000 to 20,000 megawatts apiece . . .By comparison, T. Boone Pickens delayed his plans to build a 4,000-megawatt wind farm in Texas, once promoted as the world's largest."
China being China, you don't get to complain that the nearby wind farm cuts off your view of the sky, or interferes with your television reception. If you don't like it, suck it up. An edict comes down, and China gets wind energy.
Wind power, water power, and cleaner coal plants have come to China. Will China ever become green? Hard to say. It is so far down the curve.
The race is on, and the watching is very interesting.
Curtis
Today, Nancy and I went to see "Julie and Julia," a marvelous film built around the career of Julia Child and a present day blogger, Julie Powell, who straightened out her life and career under JC's inspiration. Not very far into the film, the issue of butter and all of its praises came up. How true, how totally true, I thought. Along with cheese, butter was the other dairy product I sorely missed in China was butter.
For me Chinese cooking is amazing in the tremendous variety of foods that are harmonized into a world class cuisine, all of which is, at its core, done without dairy products. In a similar way, Chinese music is amazing in being able to express tremendous variety while using only the five notes of the pentatonic scale.
But give me the diatonic (7-note) scale any day of the week, and give me butter!
After the movie, we tried to make it to the Oakwood Cafe for some long-missed Southern food, but were just a few minutes too late. They close at 8:30. So we turned around and did an encore trip to Taqueria La Oaxaqueña, enjoying the uniquely New World expressions of corn and peppers... and cheese. I thought: I will have to add Mexican to the list of cuisines I gave to Mike's and my seat mate, Li Zhong, on our return flight. Li Zhong is not lactose intolerant, and is also a fan of hot pepper, hailing from Sichuan, so he certainly should enjoy the heritage of Mexico, the Meso-Americas and the South, which contributed both corn and pepper to Chinese cuisine. That's right. There was no corn, potato or pulpy pepper -- hot or mild -- in Chinese, Thai or Indian food before Spanish traders started plowing the Pacific with their Manila galleons.
So for me, now I am back in my element. A world of diatonic and chromatic scales, cheese, butter and good wines. A world where I can sip water from a water fountain and brush my teeth without feeling the need to have a plastic water bottle at my side. A world where the sky is usually more blue than yellow and the night reveals more than one shining object, where you can occasionally find a quiet place with no other people, no din of honking horns and construction equipment, only the rhythm of frogs and crickets.
This said, China was a marvelous place to visit. For me, China provided closure to a long-held desire to see the land that gave birth to Taoism, Chan Buddhism, and many of the technologies that enable us to write and mass distribute this communication (consider that paper, printing, explosives, standardization, and the compass all were developed in China). The elusive land of silk and jade beyond the mountainous backbone of Asia.
Our visits to some of first centers of Chinese Buddhism were immensely inspiring. Traveling the road connecting the ancient capitals Chang'an (Xi'an), Luoyang, Kaifeng, and Nanjing was a path I long dreamed of following. Seeing some of the mountains and fantastic rock formations that inspired Chinese painting and hearing traditional music in the Bell and Drum towers was an unforgettable experience.
Thirty-seven years ago I was in Kathmandu, less than 100 Km from the Nepal-Tibet border (by the crow), when I learned that the United States had lifted official restrictions on travel to Mainland China. One of the first things I did when I returned to New Delhi was go to the American Embassy and ask them to officially remove the prohibition from my passport. The request was answered by the clerk drawing a thick line through the words Mainland China with a permanent black marker.
But the symbolism was great. Of course I never made it to China on that trip, nor could I have gotten there from across the Tibetan frontier at that time, but I always hoped that someday I would be able to finish the journey to the land on the other side of the great mountain range.
This trip was indeed a dream come true. My China adventure.
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