The March 2006 17-day tour of China, a benefit for International Maritime Center (IMC), has now come and gone.  The tour was a great success!  The group was comprised of 130 travelers, 38 of which were in the IMC tour group, many of whom during the course of the trip became great friends.

The travelers visited Shanghai, Suzhou, Wuhan, Chongqing, Guilin, Xi’an, and Beijing, and spent five nights and six days on the Yangtze River and half a day on the Li River.  Travelers visited the Imperial Palace in the Forbidden City, The Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, The Temple of Heaven, and The Summer Palace.  They also saw the Terra-cotta Soldiers, the Neolithic Bampo Village, the Wild Goose Pagoda, and  the mountains along the Li River, the Three Gorges and the Lesser Gorges on the Yangtze River.  They visited carpet, silk, embroidery, jade, cloisonné, tea, and carpet production facilities, and had an opportunity to shop at a market attached to the facility. One highlight was the beautiful and educational tour on the Yangtze River.

Accommodations were four and five-star hotels and meals were eaten in the hotel restaurants (or onboard ship) which featured American buffet breakfasts and family style dinners.

This tour provided a terrific overview of the country, a wonderful opportunity to see its great historical and cultural sites as well as some of its extraordinary beauty.  Our guides were particularly informative, able to provide detailed stories of the various dynasties that ruled China.