Book excerpt: Travel Art & Travel Writing: A Curious Heart’s Wanderlust in China brings to life a curious traveler’s experiences in China. You’ll taste the food and enjoy the outdoor social life of China. You’ll know how to identify the different temple types by their names and architectural features. You’ll learn about Chinese structures, both traditional and contemporary. And you’ll dive deep into the mythology and folklore of China: exploring the layers of history, ritual, and myth that underlie the customs and folk traditions of China. Travel with me through China and explore its culture: • Chinese travel sites (Chasing an Elusive Ideal in Modern Day Shangri-la), • Chinese customs (Getting Social in Suzhou’s Night Markets), • Chinese holidays and festivals (Ancestors and Immortals: a Foreigner’s Introduction to Ching Ming Festival), • Chinese temples and religious life (A Brief Introduction to Chinese Temples), • Chinese mythology (The Story of the Nian & Myth and Mooncakes: The Cosmological Symbolism of the Zhou Revolution), • Chinese cooking (The Floral Mandarin Fish & Snow Fish), • Chinese contemporary architecture (Post-Modern Architectural Irony in Suzhou’s The Gate To the East). Dave Alber creates Hybrid VR Paintings ™, Travel Art, and Travel Writing. His Travel Art shares an experience of wonder at our cultural continuity and universal humanity. Dave Alber is the inventor of Hybrid VR Paintings ™, which are physical/virtual hybrid paintings that occupy a physical space in the gallery while simultaneously manifesting within the virtual world of 360° panoramic technology. Books by Dave Alber include: • Travel Art: Intimations, • The Heart of Myth: Wisdom Stories of Endangered People, • The Taotie in Chinese Art, Culture, and Cosmology. You can receive Dave Alber’s art book for free at http://DaveAlber.com.