China

China greets you in layers—stone, smoke, silk, and sky. In Beijing, dawn spills over the tiled roofs of the Forbidden City. The courtyards lie hushed, the air scented with sandalwood and history. Guards march in measured rhythm, their shadows long on vermilion walls. Beyond the gates, morning glimmers on willow-framed lakes where poets once drifted in thought. Farther north, the Great Wall winds across mountains like a sleeping dragon. Standing on its ramparts, you feel the earth curve beneath you—the weight of centuries pressing softly through your soles. Then Shanghai, where glass towers rise like crystal pagodas. The city hums with a rhythm both human and electric. By the Huangpu River, reflections of neon ripple beside lanterns swaying in the wind. Jazz lingers in air perfumed with rain and possibility. Southward, Guilin appears as a painting come to life. Karst peaks rise from river mist; cormorants glide above jade water. The landscape feels calligraphic—every line deliberate, every silence meaningful. And then Lijiang—the heart’s quiet after motion. Its cobbled lanes echo with streams and folk songs, the air cool with snowmelt from distant peaks. The mountains here seem less like stone and more like breath—the final exhale of the land before it meets the sky.