The Asian Voyage: In the Wake of the Admiral

It's never hard finding adventure in China. By driving just half an hour outside of Nanjing, the former Ming dynasty capital that today is a metropolis of 4.5 million, we have slipped back into a China not exactly of imperial times but one that modernity has scarcely touched. The rice stalks, newly planted, undulate in the breeze as they stretch toward the sun. Children of the local soil, their skin darkened from long days helping seed the paddies, splash around in muddy watering holes. Traffic comes to a stop whenever a water buffalo chances onto the road.

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