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| Beijing, China |
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Beijing is known for its grandeur - wide boulevards, China's finest museums, impressive temples, and the grand Forbidden City - made up of 800 buildings, it is the largest and best-preserved cluster of ancient buildings in China. Outside of the Forbidden City and throughout Beijing, hidden between the ever-emerging skyscrapers, you'll find the Hutongs, where the ancient way of Chinese life goes on as it has for centuries. The Hutongs are synonymous with a close knit neighborhood or small town, where families have lived in the same home for centuries, every one knows everyone, and the market is just around the corner.
North of Beijing are some of the best preserved sections of the Great Wall - a breathtaking sight as it snakes over the rugged and rolling hills. Built in stages 2,000 years ago, the wall stretches for more than 3,000 miles. |
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| Guilin, China |
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Imagine a watercolor. A lazy river rolls by in the foreground. A water buffalo slowly plows a rice paddy, where people plat rice as they have for centuries. Tree-covered limestone peaks just toward the heavens, and become darker and clearer as the mist disappears in the morning sun. The city awakens as trishaws are peddled to market. This is Guilin. |
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| Shanghai, China |
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Shanghai has long been the commercial heart of China - from the flamboyance of the 1920s and 1930s, to the productivity and prosperity of today. The city is an intriguing mix - along the riverside are grand streets with European-style buildings and a stone's throw away is the old Chinese Quarter and its maze of meandering alleys. Shanghai's shopping is said to be the most varied and rewarding in China. |
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| Xian, China |
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Thousands of years ago, Xian was the most important city in China. The Silk Road, of Marco Polo fame, wound west from here to the Mediterranean and beyond. Emperor Qin, who ruled from Xian in the third century B.C., had an army of more than 8,000 terra-cotta warriors and horses buried with him to protect his empire after his earthly death. They were discovered accidentally in 1974 by workers digging a well. |
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