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.
There has been an interesting progression on this month-long trip. First, we visited purely Buddhist and sparsely populated Bhutan. Next, we visited partially Buddhist and more densely populated Sikkim...
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
It has been said that the American healthcare system is not about health, nor is it a system. Rather, it has been described as a pyramid scheme run by insurance companies with government collaboration, in which exorbitant premiums are collected from those who can afford to pay. Profits are maximized by simply paying out less in benefits than what is collected in premiums. The sicker the American population is, the more profits can be made by the insurance companies. Care is withheld from the uninsured...
Kuala Lumpur is the capital of the country of Malaysia. Known previously as Malaya, the country was colonized first by the Portuguese, then the Dutch, and finally by the British. In World War II, it was occupied by the Japanese. It became independent after WWII. In 1963 Malaya joined with Singapore, changing its name to Malaysia, adding the "si" for Singapore. However, the confederation lasted only two years because of resistance to the potential influence of Singapore's majority Chinese population.
Our third (and final) Vietnamese port of call was Saigon, the former capital of South Vietnam, which was renamed Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) after the victory of North Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War. HCMC is a large prosperous city. We were lucky to be met on two consecutive days by our old friend Bob, who is married to a Vietnamese lady and has retired to live in Vietnam following his long career in Reno as a counselor and professional musician. I played many gigs with Bob in Reno over the years.