Hi friends and family! Both Facebook and my blog site were censored in China- so I have been trying to catch up. I have just posted my photos to Facebook- but I have added the better ones here as well.
In our one month in China- we covered an incredible amount of ground. We flew from Phuket, Thailand into Guangzhou, in the Canton Province of Southern China. From there, we flew to Kunming in the Yunnan Province (in the south-west). We traveled the majority of our time within the Yunnan Province to Dali and then to Shangri-la, "the gateway to Tibet". Shangri-la is difficult to reach as it sits at 10,760 feet elevation in the Himalayan mountains, north-west in the Yunnan Province. The harrowing trip was well worth it; it's a stunning city. Next, we went to Chengdu in the Sichuan Province (via Kunming) to see the Giant Pandas. While there, we also went to see the Sichuan Opera- famous for the rapidly changing masks of the actors- happening before your eyes without your knowing how. It was a quick trip before we went to Xi'an, Shaanxi Province to see the buried terra-cotta soldiers followed by a few days in Beijing to see Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and the Great Wall.
