Awards for China trip

In no particular order and based entirely on my own eccentric preferences:

Most unexpected delight: the Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi'an. Having seen the terra cotta warriors the day before, the prospect of visiting a big old Buddhist temple was pretty much "ho hum I suppose they have to fill the second morning in Xi'an SOMEhow". But hearing the monks and worshippers chanting turned it into a peak experience. I remember the weather as bright sunshine and the gardens as green, though it was probably smoggy, and I'm deductively sure all the trees were grey with dust.

Favorite street vendor: As we struggled through the crowds at the Summer Palace (Beijing Day 2), we came on a man practicing calligraphy on the blocks of the sidewalk with a wet rag tied on the end of a broomstick. He would draw one elegant character after another, the water on the grey stones making black strokes as dark as ink. When he completed a character, he moved on, leaving his work behind to dry to invisibility or to be trampled and smeared by passersby. We stopped, fascinated. "Where you from?" he asked, then proceeded to draw characters for "USA", "Canada", and "Australia". Now that I think about it, I'm not even sure he was actually there to sell anything. He may just have started demanding money to write names so we would go away and let him get back to his calligraphy.

Favorite city: Beijing -- clean, lively, international feeling. Xi'an was too gritty, and we didn't actually see much of Guilin, which Arthur, our guide, described as a "small city" -- only two million people. I guess when you start with over a billion people in the national population, the scale shifts.

Favorite show: Legends of Kungfu. The Beijing Opera greatest hits was unquestionably the most authentically Chinese and had gorgeous costumes, but it only reinforced the sense of being in a really foreign foreign country. And the T'ang dynasty show was too transparently tourist fodder with music modulated to Western tonalities and costumes festooned with sequins and glitter that I suspect were not authentic to a thousand years ago. Legends of Kungfu had real kungfu moves done by half-naked, well-muscled young men and has been performed over 5000 times (though we got to see it in the Red Theater, its home court, with an audience that was mostly Chinese). Should it ever come to Portland, I'd happily pay to see it again.

Best food: I hate to say it, but I think it was dinner at T'ang Dynasty in Xi'an. They served us a somewhat China-fied version of a Western five-course meal, and I really liked their take on our cuisine. Which probably just means I have no breadth of taste, but hey! If you want to argue about it, set up your own awards.

Best hotel: Guilin Sheraton. The Beijing Sheraton and the Xi'an Hilton were newer and flashier, but the 15-year-old Guilin Sheraton felt comfortable and friendly and like I could sleep there without worrying about running into the sharp edges of its trendiness. Plus which the Beijing Sheraton had a glass enclosure around the toilet inside the bathroom. Why would anyone do that?