Difficult to put into words what you feel when you realize you are, at that very moment, living a dream come true. What is most striking about this photo, however, is what you don't see. Here, we are all smiles, and there is a serenity
I was feeling, sort of an "Aaaaaa moment" as a fellow tourist took this photo of us. Unseen is all the work that went into getting here. You can read about it in The Disabled Travelers
Guide to
the World in the chapter, "Stairways to Paradise". It was certainly worth the effort.
Everywhere we went in Shanghai there was construction. Workers swarming over bamboo scaffolds put up around buildings being built all over the city. It was infectious; you could feel
it permeating everything around you.
Even in the countryside, massive housing projects were being put up, bringing electricity to the fortunate ones who would soon be moving from huts with dirt floors into the 20th and 21st Centuries.
But the impression that is most vivid and longest lasting is the one we saw in Beijing, in Tienneman Square. Hundreds of thousands of young people and students assembled in the Square in celebration of a national holiday. A sea of
fresh, smiling faces. Of neat, well behaved children who would one day lead China forward to take command as the most powerful nation on Earth. | 
