(Read this if you want - otherwise continue to the photos)

Johna and I took an awesome trip to China June 1, 2000. We were fortunate to travel with the Sandy Lydon group. To our advantage, Sandy and his wife Annie had traveled to China numerous times. Everything about the trip went smooth as silk. We went with a group of 20 people from the Santa Cruz area. We all got along quite well and it was a funny group, so there was lots of laughter. We flew from San Francisco nonstop to Shanghai and spent a few days roaming that exciting city. Shanghai is a huge metropolis with a fascinating history, lots of neon and immense plans and opportunity for the future. I thoroughly enjoyed the Shanghai museum exhibits and believe its the nicest museum I have seen. The jade and bronze exhibits were elegant. Leaving Shanghai, we boarded a Victoria Cruise ship for a nine day trip up the Yangtze River. Each day the ship would dock at a different port and we would explore a new town, take a hike, visit a museum, pagoda or Buddhist temple. We saw many beautiful gardens. Its apparent that gardens are very important to these people. One day we were able to tour the Yangtze River Dam project, which is huge in many ways - both in size and the effect on this country. Its hard to realize the massiveness until you are standing on the edge overlooking the dam. We disembarked from the ship at Chongoing and spent a few days there.

Then we flew from Chongoing to Xian, where we saw the Terra Cotta warriors. Its the largest archaeological site of the twentieth century - amazing! Since it is a working site, they are still uncovering treasures. It is truly moving when you first see those 7,000 warriors lined up next to each other, their life-size horses and chariots. They are so detailed that each face is different.These treasures are 2,000 years old and were recently discovered in 1974, when a farmer was digging a new well.

We flew from Xian to Beijing. Beijing is the largest city in China with a population of 12 million. It is 16 times the size of Hong Kong. China is very much a country of contrasts. Looking out our hotel window in Beijing, if you looked to the left you could see the ancient Forbidden City. If you looked right, you saw the towering glass skyscrapers of the new World Center. I loved Beijing!

Wherever we traveled, we were accompanied by a national guide and also a local guide telling us details about the history, culture or current day events. I learned a tremendous amount about the country. Throughout the trip we had wonderful food - most of our lunches and dinners were about 16 courses. But surprisingly did not gain any weight! Probably due to much walking and all the stairs we climbed. China has stairs everywhere and lots of them. I thoroughly enjoyed the country, the people and the culture. Each day was visually and mentally stimulating with all that we were seeing and learning. The history here is fantastic! China has a population of 1.2 billion people. Thats an impressive lesson in itself.

Thank goodness we took many photos. I will return to China at any opportunity. Here are some of our favorites, displayed in the order as we traveled from the beginning in Shanghai to our departure from Beijing. Enjoy!

"China is a sleeping giant. Let her lie and sleep, for when she awakens she will astonish the world." - Napoleon