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Dallas Smith's Blog

Beijing, China

The Forbidden City and the Great Wall

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We began our China tour in the capital city of Beijing.  Though Beijing is a city of 21 million people, it is very clean and efficient...much above my expectations which were colored by my experience of the crowded cities in India.  We toured the famous Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square on our first day, and on the second day we toured a section of the Great Wall of China.

Paradise Near Seattle: Whidbey Island

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Germany: World Capitol for Biomass Energy

A Growing Alternative Energy Source

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This is a blog for those readers with an interest in technology, specifically, the cutting edge of new technology in the development of alternative energy.

Fifth Port of Call: Valparaiso, Chile

February 2022

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Chilean wines of world class quality tend to be less expensive than similar European wines due to Chile’s lower labor costs. 

Report from Jordan and Israel

February, 2019

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This blog describes a visit to ancient Petra and a conference of Middle East Nurses United in Human Caring.

Traveling During Covid May 2021

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Our recent trip to Georgia and Alabama was our first occasion to travel since Susan and I arrived back from Israel, Jordan, India, Dubai, and Nashville on March 5, 2020.  Society, including our company, Healing Healthcare Systems, shut down totally at the end of that week...

Kyoto Shinto Shrines

Visiting Shinto Shrines and Buddhist Temples

10/26/2023By Dallas Smith0: Seven Japanese Cities Visited on the Viking Cruise
 This gallery has a blog post attached
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Shinto is Japan's "native" religion, dating back at least two thousand years.  The Shinto temples in Kyoto date from the eighth century, when Kyoto was the most powerful city in Japan.

Shanghai

China's largest financial and industrial center

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Flying from Beijing to Shanghai, Susan and I boarded the Viking cruise ship Yi-Dun.  We had the pleasure of a Shanghai city tour in which we viewed an ancient garden containing ornate buildings from the Ming and Qing dynasties. 

The skyline of Shanghai is impressive, containing the world's third tallest building, the Shanghai Tower with 128 floors, at 2073 feet high.  (The world's tallest building is Dubai's Burj Khalifa at 2722 feet high.  The second highest is the Merdeka in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at 2227 feet.)--source Wikipedia