Spent a day in transit in Hong Kong (September 26) on the way to China, with friend and gifting partner Lapping Wang, and another friend Waiwan Tsang drove us to two latent vortices: one on Mount Butler, and one on a mountain popularly known as Dog’s Belly.
          Waiwan told us that Dog’s Belly is actually called Nine Bellies now, due to political correctness and the fact that "dog" and "nine" have the same pronunciation in Cantonese. It is the name of some small mountains near the Chinese University of Hong Kong. This was the more difficult of the two latent vortices, for a couple reasons. Just as we began our climb we met some police cars, who were investigating a robbery of hikers by illegal immigrants from over the border. Seems that people come into the New Territories, skulk in the hills, rob hikers, and flee back over the boundary with their takings. So we had to keep an eye out. Furthermore, the hill the vortex was on had no good trail from where we set out, and the vines and trees were so thick, we had to go on hands and knees part of the way.
          Mount Butler is on Hong Kong island itself, and there was much easier access: first a road, and then stairs to the top. The latent vortex was a little way down the other side, but accessible. We got there just before dark, and in time to find the critical points . We planned to return in several weeks to see what effects, if any, had been made on the Hong Kong sky.

          Lapping and I left Hong Kong for Beijing on September 27. I had been in Beijing several times before: first in 1989, and the most recently in 2001. The place had changed considerably. In ’89, on the way into the city from the airport, we drove on an aging road shared by trucks, cars, three-wheeled carts, and donkey carts. Now the place is ringed and pierced by modern freeways, and the traffic is a caution. I wouldn’t like to drive here even if I could rent a car, (which is not easy for a foreigner anyway).

          We had to rely on public transportation, and the occasional taxi. In the beginning, our progress was slow. In ten days we reached only 7 latent vortices. For comparison, last year with Cesco on our expedition in southern Germany and Switzerland, we averaged about 4 per day, and that count increased during the latter part of our trip. On that trip, and on the trip to South Africa, the sheng canopy appeared after three days: this time it took ten days.

          Three of the vortices in the Beijing area were in the countryside out in the suburbs: near the towns of Sanhe, Langfang, and Fangshan. One was in the Forbidden City, and one on a hill near the Ming Tombs, north of the City. This last was the most difficult of the five, due to a thorn thicket covering the hill.

          Several times we travelled to latent vortices, only to return disappointed, due to inaccessibility. One such place was a mountain near the Great Wall (in Ba Da Ling). We progressed along the wall as far as we could, until we could see in the distance a section of wall which had been destroyed, lying in a rather difficult pass. If we’d had more time, we might have tried it, but it would have carried us into the night, and we weren’t prepared for that.

          The Mid-Autumn Festival took place during our trip, and Beijing was overflowing with people on vacation. This made getting around even more difficult than usual, and so we took a bus and spent three days in neighboring Shanxi Province. Without a car, we had time only to attend only to the most strong vortices. There were two such in Shanxi.

          One was on a hill some distance east of Taiyuan. A friend of a friend there had a new car, and he drove us back to the vortex site. It was an exciting drive: he hit over 160 kilometers per hour on the freeway, and nearly high-centered on the rough hill roads after we left the freeway.

          An unusually memorable vortex was over the border in Inner Mongolia. We took a bus to the nearest town, then hired a taxi (with Mongolian driver) to drive us further north to the closest point to the vortex from the road. Here Lapping, a friend Qui from Da Tong, and I started climbing. Several hours later we reached the vortex on a high mesa, after passing several flocks of sheep. We caused one of the herders a bit of trouble, as his sheep kept following us away from where he wanted to keep them.
          This vortex was special: not only because it was strong (visible from over 400 kilometers away), but beginning about 50 kilometers away, you could feel the presence of a strong cheerful welcoming spirit there. After we reached the vortex, which was on nearly the highest point of the mesa, and opened it, the sheng being made his presence known, and directed me to do some cleansing and other work on the place. This attracted quite a number of other sheng beings.
          Leisurely walking back along the Mesa, and then down, in the sun and cool breeze, through the occasional flocks of sheep and herders, far from teeming cities and pollution, with my spirits high from contact with the wonderful guardian spirit of the place, and the sheng qi billowing out from the newly opened vortex, was a rare treat.
          We reached the highway just before dark, and after a period of hitch-hiking, an old van pulled over and took us to the nearest town. From there, we found a bus to Da Tong over the border, to spend the night.

          Next day we travelled to the ancient taoist center at Hengshan (Mount Heng). There was a vortex up on the neighboring mountain, but the way was blocked off -- for fire prevention, the soldiers told us. There is quite good feng shui at the place, and some of the old sheng beings survive, in spite of the Government commercialization of the mountain. That night we took a train back to Beijing.

          Having finished our work near Beijing, we decided to continue the strategy we had adopted in Shanxi of just opening the strongest latent vortices.

          Years ago I had read the biography Chronicles of the Tao by Deng Mingdao, and was moved to visit Huashan. This is one of the five holy Taoist mountains in China, and from time immemorial the site of a taoist community. Only 120 kilometers from the ancient capital of Changan (now Xian), it had been visited by many renowned men (including emperors) over the past three millennia. This heritage was interrupted during the Great Cultural Revolution, when the monks were driven away, and many old buildings destroyed. Now there are Taoist monks on the premises again, but the place is commercialized as a tourist and cultural attraction, and at least some of the monks seem to be there mainly to add color.
          My first visit was in 1990. At that time there was only one way up the mountain: a path dangerous at places, but equipped with chains driven into the mountain sides for relative safety, and rather steep. The climb took about five and half hours, from base to the top of the highest peak. As might be guessed, the trip was taken mostly by those who were serious in wanting to visit, rather than by casual tourists. I found the place wonderful: primarily for the outstanding feng shui, but also for the beautiful and breathtaking scenery, and the glimpse it offered into three thousand years of history. Some of the taoist gods still keep a presence on the mountain, most notably Leishen, the god of thunder.
          Some years later, when another opportunity presented itself, I returned, and was unpleasantly surprised to find that a gondola had been built to carry passengers the greater part of the journey up. The number of visitors had now increased greatly, and many of this new increase behaved not as pilgrims, but like immature children, tossing about refuse and yelling, just to hear their voices echo from the mountain sides.
          But the beauty and wonderful qi of the place was still there, and so I decided to revisit Huashan, suspecting that it might harbor a vortex. I was not disappointed: the only other location where I have seen so many together is Sedona, Arizona. Due to the steepness of the mountains, we could not reach many of the vortices, but we took care of what we could reach. The old main trail has now been completely replaced by a concrete walkway, and steps cut into the side of the mountain. But the climb still required more than 5 hours, from bottom to top.

          The train from Beijing to Xian had gone south to another old capital city Luoyang, and thence west. Passing Luoyuang in the night, I had noted another quite strong vortex, somewhat to the south. So after descending Huashan, we took a train to Luoyang, and next morning set out for that vortex.
          The town on the map most nearly in the direction of the latent vortex was Yiyang, so we boarded the Yiyang bus from Luoyang. When the direction of the vortex became perpendicular to the road, we got off the bus and began hiking: first across paved country roads to a village, then along dirt roads to a smaller village, and then along a path through the fields, until we reached a river. From the river we could see our destination through the hazy sky, but neither up nor downstream could we see a crossing.
          So we headed south along a dirt road bordering the river. After a kilometer or so, we found a farmer with a three wheel cart cutting twigs from brush. Lapping asked him where the next bridge was, and was told, "about 30 kilometers upriver." For a fee, he was willing to drive us in his cart (with his two year old boy on his lap). We bumped up and down on that cart for about ten kilometers, at which point we came to a ferry. Great luck! We paid the driver and waited for the ferry to come across to our side of the river. The craft was steel, and hooked to a steel cable which was strung across the river. The captain/crew was a young lady who pulled the boat across the river by pulling on the cable hand-over-hand. When she got to our side, besides ourselves, her passengers were a bicycle and a motorcycle, with drivers of course. Lapping and I helped things along by pulling on the cable too, and we recrossed the river rapidly.
          From the river bank we hiked to a nearby road and found a car willing to drive us ten kilometers back upriver. From there we took off again toward the vortex hill. Finally, we came to railroad tracks, another road, and a village at the base of the hill. We found a trail following terraces up the hill, and eventually reached our destination.
          This vortex was in Henan province: "he" means "river", and refers to the Yellow River. "Nan" means "south". Beijing is in the middle of Hebei province: "he" is as before, and "bei" means "north". The Yellow River, second in importance in China, has changed its course a number of times, so the names are not entirely accurate, but they give a general geographical idea.

          I had hoped that on the way back to Beijing, we could pass through Shanxi Province and learn whether the positive canopy over Beijing had extended thither, aided by the vortices we had gifted over a week before. But train tickets were scarce, and we had to take the east route back.

          We left Bejing on the 15th, to spend a day and a half in Hong Kong, before setting off for the States. As related above, we had opened two vortices three weeks earlier in Hong Kong/New Territories, and I was rather curious to see if there were now any effects. I was surprised upon flying in, that the region was now covered by a sheng canopy . This is the first time I saw that happen with only two open vortices. My suspicion is that the distribution of 600 or so TBs by the gifter Didier in greater Hong Kong, contributed much to that effect. On Monday, the 16th, Waiwan drove us about and we opened two more vortices, to "ice the cake": one on Big Hat Mountain and one near the big Buddhist statue on Lantau Island.

          The weather for our trip back on Tuesday was nearly perfect for observation, once the plane climbed out of the extreme smog which had been present in Hong Kong the previous few weeks. The sheng canopy did not extend much into the ocean to the east, as I had expected.
          When we flew over Taiwan, however, I found the the sheng canopy there last autumn had expanded somewhat, over the intervening year. It extended into the ocean some miles south of the island, but the expansion to the north was even greater. And in fact, there was a belt of sheng qi some 30 meters wide or so, which extended from Taiwan all the way to the large southern island of Kyushu of Japan. In fact all of Kyushu was now covered by the canopy, which was surprising, given that I had only opened one vortex in Kyushu the previous fall: that, in Nagasaki. Now a single sheng canopy covered all of Taiwan, Kyushu, and the southern half of the big island Honshu. In the corridor of the canopy connecting Taiwan and Japan, the qi was flowing northeast, toward Japan from Taiwan.
          Japan’s most famous mountain, Fujiyama, was clearly visible from the airplane. It is home to a quite strong latent vortex. The channel of sheng qi from Japan across the north Pacific to the Puget Sound area was still there, the qi flowing east, so in that sense, the sheng canopy of Taiwan/Japan was linked up to that of the Pacific Coast.

          Since the land was so clearly visible on the trip, it gave me good opportunity to view the effect on the ground of the "trickling down" of the qi from the sheng canopy back to the ground. It has earlier been described how, in particular, this sheng qi enters living trees through the highest branch, and passes down the trunk into the earth. The highest concentration of sheng qi that I now viewed from the air, was indeed, in the trees.
          But there was surface sheng qi in areas without trees: more in grassy areas, and lesser, but still considerable amounts, in bare earth. So the process of falling qi from the sheng canopy seemed to occur most everywhere beneath it; but the amount of retention or absorbtion appears to vary. There was very little of it over concrete or asphalt surfaces.

          Due to the corridor of qi extending from Taiwan to Kyushu, it was possible to observe the effect on the sea beneath the sheng canopy . The water seemed to be even more positive than most of the land. With one curious exception: the water along the coast line, from 1/2 to 2 kilometers out, depending on depth apparently, was not positive. The sheng qi would extend down to the coast line from the interior, and then cease, beginning again only some distance off in the ocean. I should mention that this sheng qi , both on land and water, at least as yet, does not seem to penetrate much below the surface.

          We had a stopover in Narita (Tokyo Airport), and it was nearly dark when the plane took off from there. Traveling against the sun, it was daylight again when we reached the US Pacific Coast. The Pacific Coast sheng canopy now extends 30 or so kilometers out into the ocean in the San Francisco Bay region, at least as far down as San Jose, which was where our transcontinental flight ended. It extended as far east as I could see from the airplane.

          The next leg to the trip was north, to Seattle. The broad extent of the sheng canopy continued into northern California, and then gradually narrowed to 30 kilometers or so through southern Oregon, widening again in northern Oregon. From southern Oregon up, unto Puget Sound, the region immediately along the coast had no positive canopy above it.