George Hellman Impressions - 2001

So I went in to see Bob about a trip to the Caribbean to snorkel and he said,

“You don’t want to do that. You want to go to China with me instead.”

And Joan and I went to China with Bob, his family, and 30 or so other folks in June 2001. It was a great trip, a super vacation! We saw Beijing, Xian, Chongqing( where we boarded the river boat), the Yangtze River Gorges, the Three Gorges Dam( under construction), Wuhan, Suzhou, and Shanghai.

Joan said I took too many pictures, and in trying to select representative photos, I may have to fess up to having taken quite a few. I can’t say that these pictures are representative.

China is so big, so varied,  so different that they are just a few shots that I liked when I went back through the 20 plus rolls I shot in the slightly more than 2 weeks we were in China. They turn out to be heavy on Suzhou and light on the early part of the trip, perhaps.

But China has so much to see that it’s nearly impossible to grasp even after you’ve been there.

In the Forbidden City in Beijing, a city of 13 million in 2001, a lone cleaning lady can be found behind the scenes.

Beijing’s Hutong neighborhood of old houses with courtyards on alleys far in time, if not in distance from the modern skyscrapers and highways.

A monk peers into a temple in the Big Wild Goose Monastery in Xian.

As our riverboat left the dock at Chongqing to start down the Yangtze an old dragon prow riverboat sits in front of the modern skyline.

The Net Master’s Garden in Suzhou.

Mother and daughter? Sisters? bicycling along one of the many canals in Suzhou.

One of the many Moon Bridges in Suzhou.

Canal reflection outside Tiger Hill Pagoda Park in Suzhou.

Tiger Hill Pagoda.

Moon gate in Shanghai’s Yuan Garden.

Mythical creature, rocks, and plantings in Shanghai’s Yuan Garden.

Shanghai cloverleaf and streets with city skyline in background.