bexrbetter

Oops, I didn't scroll up far enough, I only saw the "no horns" symbol. The actual top right symbol is "Don't post in forums without a firm opinion".

No St Vinnies brass bands No Kiwi's celebrating rugby wins,

Well there's no guns so 1 out of 12 isn't bad ... by Chinese standards.

Well I might have been more impressed had I gone down into the pits as well, but this pleb saw standing from up high behind the rails; a/ Nissen hut 1 - An empty nissen hut that contained a pit, literally a hole in the ground (I think I used to live there as a child actually) b/ Nissen hut 2 - Another pit with a couple of Warriors. c/ Nissen hut 3 - Full of Warriors but can't get very close to them, this is what you see, you can see tourist on the walkway around it ... In fact what i found the most impressive was the nissen huts themselves, the 3 of them are extraordinarily massive as you can see in the picture! The picture also gives an insight into how large the buried city is, these are just the guards outside one gate! Also impressive in Xi'An is the wall, 14 kms of it that isn't often mentioned. Great to walk on, they even hire bicycles.

Only have to watch a Brickie going with a bit of string and a level to see the simplest of simple accuracy within a few mms, and corrected on the next row.

People know the area, Xi'An (shee an), better for the Terracotta Warriors who were crafted to stand outside the gates of the "vast underground city". Indeed Qin's tomb, which has the world's largest pyramid footprint but not height, is encased in mercury to stop grave robbers taking his treasures, they have drilled down to confirm with samples. If anyone wants to visit the Terracotta Warriors, which are boring on their own, you need to take in a whole tour to get the entire story to understand why the Warriors exist, that's all very interesting and the diaroma of the old city explains the Warriors positioning well, and dare say that makes the Pyramids look small in terms of floor plan, we are talking a completely buried city here.

So you didn't go as a German Tourist then.

Can you elaborate on this a bit, just so i know what i'm looking out for, you know, for those times I'm on the lookout for some Satan lust?

... victim of gravity.

Yup, 2 of them copied one of them, not hard to explain, media outlets do it to this day without fact checking and look like idiots.

Well I guess if it doesn't agree with your point of view that you can't prove at all, you might say that. It's pretty factual actually. The Story Tellers most certainly existed as did the sacrifices and temples that apparently you, the self confessed religious historian, knew nothing about. Seems your plinth isn't as tall as you thought. Coincidently and very on topic, not the ones about Gods. Things such as the quintessential skills to actually exist day to day like navigation, cooking and which plants and animals not to eat, simply don't compare to fairytales told to children. ... and back on ignore you go, you're simply too condescending for me.

Research for what? Any experienced Policeman will tell you the unreliability of witnesses and that a few witnesses will often give totally conflicting stories. Now take those facts and relate them to a time where events were carried by mouth to mouth, over long periods of time and multiple sources. there was no internet, telegraph, telephones etc. and traveling Story Tellers wouldn't get a free feed, not for telling some boring run of the mill story, but would get food and even paid to exaggerate and entertain, bringing wondrous stories from other districts or lands, i.e. "A man who walks on water you say ...."

Ha! Like the factual lessons from the Dead Sea Scrolls on sacrifice and which is the right temple to do the sacrifices in, I'm sure there's lots already translated that they would prefer people not to see, religious people are quite consistent in that area. Temple Scroll - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Love the racism and segregation in it as well. They shoot themselves in the foot actually, if they based their sermons on Deuteronomy, then I imagine the pews would be full (with guys in raincoats in the back rows!) and a Deuteronomy movie would possibly be a blockbuster, but coincidently wouldn't get past the religious censors

Yes, and that's what I am quoting so I pose the question to you, have you read any of the translations?

Well I hope so, I for one am very concerned that I am not sacrificing animals in the correct manner or for that matter, the right temple.

... and it's now 2016. I could explain it, but that would also require you to understand it, fat chance. And my 90 year old Father in law hid in the mountains for 8 years for being an educated Doctor and I'm married to a lady who went through it as a child, and of course has lived through every change since as a Lawyer, I know more about these things than you do Mr Expert. Once again you demonstrate your utter ignorance of China, time to put your bigotry on ignore. But I'll leave you with some truth, while your Government oppresses you and sells off your country from under you, they merely use an age old propaganda trick of pointing you elsewhere and saying "See how bad it is over there .....". Sucker.

That you truly care when your lifestyle indicates otherwise. Was sarcasm - For Socialists who run around telling everybody else how issues could be solved, hell even chipping in occasionally, but all while enjoying every trapping that Capitalism has to offer. How about you lead the way, If you sold your plane, give up your wine, don't visit friends tomorrow or a wasteful Sunday drive otherwise in the car, you could power a village for a year. I actually know people who have done this, impressive. Stupid by my selfish capitalistic standards, but impressive. Note that every country that has chosen Socialist foundations have eventually failed, and miserably so, yet for some reason Australia is continually expanding down that path.

Yes he said this, look it up; “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

Well firstly, not you, tell the truth now. ... and I'm not either, but I don't pretend about these things. Coal fired stations will go in because they are cheap, and since wealthy people like you and me are not giving money, cheap takes precedent. You know little about "poverty stricken" people's attitudes, give them lights and most will use it to work at night as well. You see the map above and where I live, drive 30 minutes in most directions and you are in poverty like no Australian can imagine, poverty by our judgemental standards that is, but here's the rub; most of them are happy, also like many Australians can't imagine. [ATTACH]47987._xfImport[/ATTACH]

.. and Beijing isn't China is it. Still no one offering to clarify what "pollution" is, one thing it ain't (that people allude to) is the countless pictures of fog shrouded Beijing, I would say 90% of all "Beijing Smog" pictures I see are fog. But then again they are the same morons who keep posting pictures of flues pumping out steam [ATTACH]47986._xfImport[/ATTACH] Oh and another inconvenient truth about China Onetrack that the Western Press fail to mention, the average Chinese walks all over a typical Western person for daily environmental practices, the list is endless, you should be embarrassed and ashamed to be an Australian pointing your finger at China at all, you planet murderer you. [ATTACH]47988._xfImport[/ATTACH]

One of the most beautiful areas in the World, jaw dropping the first time when all you have seen is Oz valleys and mountains, never will forget coming around a corner on my first trip to see the beginnings of the Himalaya ranges, stunning magnitudes. Private flying is getting there, you can just imagine the issues for a country starting from scratch, no airfields is the first issue and why helicopters are making some inroads at the moment. There is actually a medium sized airport a half hours light aircraft flying away at Shangri-La city in Yunnan Province, Shangri-La by name only, they changed the name to attract tourists, and as the actual Shangri-La area is in my Province, the Sichuan Government were furious about it! Diqing Shangri-La Airport - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The red 'X' is my home, yellow dot the airport, and Meili (may lee) Snow Mountain is what's pictured above ... [ATTACH]47985._xfImport[/ATTACH]

Who's paying for it? Why do they need lights at night? How come they have been around for 5000 years and not developed - if they even want "development", maybe that's just a Western concept? And the final question, are you guys going to stop your filthy disgusting waste of money on aircraft and give that money to starving children in Africa? The answer to that one of course is; "No".

A few years ago I drove to Shangrila (yes the fabled one) on a 10 day road trip through West Sichuan in the foothills of the Himalaya mountains (next stop Tibet). They ranges start about 2 hours from my home. I was gob smacked at not only the amount of Prados that made up 50% of all vehicles, but the way they drove them, fast along some of the worst roads you can imagine while the rest of us crawled along. I had a Honda CRV loaned from a friend that at 5000 meters had about 20 bloody hp. One day we did 100kms in 10 hours, I also cracked the rear diff housing. It was quite apparent that the drivers, we are talking locals here and all the Police cars, knew it wouldn't bother the Prados crashing them along these roads. The next most popular were older style Pajeros. And yes, I of course I photoshopped the smog out, this couldn't possibly be China ... [ATTACH]47983._xfImport[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]47984._xfImport[/ATTACH]

Pretty bad. I think the story is worse than they know. I would be very nervous if I had investments in China, oh wait, I do! The Gov pushed infrastructure hard, then pushed new or modern tech, and has left a lot of old style manufacturing to fend for themselves while wages have doubled to tripled over the last 5 years so a lot of them have shut shop or running on their bones. The sudden boom in housing collapsed 3 years ago, thanks to a fundamental mistake by the Gov (some of you are aware of the recently built China "Ghost Cities"), and the banks were left to hang, so of course interest rates went up to recover it (still low by Western standards though) and bank policy tightened, so investment is low and slow. This, and other factors, has caused some inflation, unemployment, rising costs, etc, so exports are down and so the vicious circle is created. many of the populace wanted to be more Western, I'm not sure they like it now they're getting it. In favour, nearly every household owns their house (and you can not take a mortgage on your house by law), living costs are laughably low, and most things are done by cash, not credit. They also know how to not spend money and how to save so they can buy things for cash.