If you get $35,000US, you could fly us all over there for a good wine party. :lol:

Sort of. I'd have to install a plugin for Trillian as well as having Skype running in the background. It shouldn't be much longer before there is a standalone plugin.

Tangmo Village
 

There is only this torii in this village now. The carving is very fine.

After raining for years, the carving details are still very clear.

The hundreds years old gingkgo. The tree was dying away. The Beijing botanists removed a small new branch into the old tree. The old tree recover again.

Porch Bridge. The small bridge is more than 500 years old. There is a small tea house. It is super cool to have the tea, listen to the opera and watch the stream.

Is that water still clean, Billy?
Was the branch hurting the tree somehow? :confused:

The water is clean. The branch did not hurt the tree, but help.

I think Billy meant that the botonists grafted a new branch from an unrelated ginko onto the old guy and that somehow this stimulated the old guy to new efforts. Sort of like a tansfusion I guess. I'd love to know how that worked.

You are right. I didn't know how to explain it. The travel guide did not tell us more information about it.

TangYue Village
 

There mainly lived and lives Bao Clan in the village. Bao was one of the richest nabobs of his day, Ming and Qing Dynasty. It has the largest torii group (7 toriis) in China now. The toriis were built by emperors or permitted by emperors to honor "loyalty, chastity, righteousness and filial piety" (not sure if the expression is right, I cant find the references). Tangli possesses all the styles. Zhang Jiemin, former Chinese Chairman, visited this village.

I rememdered that the upper was the oldest in the group.

The toriis were built on the main road to the village. There is a saying "7 toriis and 8 stories" becasuse every torii has its history story and there is also a pavilion for rest.

The Hall of QingYi (the ancestral tmple for women): It was built in the reign of Emperor Jia Qing in Qing Dynasty (1805AD), housing an area of 818 square meter, which has five rooms in three rows. It is the only ancestral temple for women in the world.

The brick carving is very fine and dramatic.