In November of 1995, I met Ann-Marie Cervin in my church in Beijing. She was a tourist from Sweden and seemed to be very impressed with my English. I've always enjoyed meeting people who are from different countries with different backgrounds. We became friends since then and kept writing letters to each other.

In the summer of 1996, Elisabeth Stahe was referred to me by Ann-Marie. She was coming to visit Beijing. I had a great time with Elisabeth (I always call her Polish name Malina). I still remember the day we went to see the Great Wall was the hottest day I had experience in my life. Malina was not used to the summer heat. Very soon, she couldn't continue walking. As you can see she was taking a break.

What do these two people have to do with my trip? They're two great friends who made my dream come true. Without the inspiration and help from them, I would have never extended my travel experience to abroad. I would have never seen the beauty of Sweden and Denmark. From the bottom of my heart, I always appreciate what they've done for me.

In the summer of 1997, I traveled abroad by myself. Sweden and the U.S. were my distinations. I didn't know how long the entire trip would take me, but I knew it would take longer than the vacation time I was entitled. So I resigned my job.

An International trip definitely meant more preparation to me. Visa, schedule, air plane ticktets, seemed to be endless to think about. I couldn't nail down the date to fly to New York from Stockholm or Denmark. Besides, the ticket price in Beijing was quite high. I always heard people say that it's cheaper to get the same ticket outside of China. So I decided to leave it alone. With a one way ticket from Bejing to Stockholm, I started my journey on June 17th. About 14 hours later, I arrived in Stockholm airport.

I came at the right time. In a few days (June 20), it was the Mid-Summer holiday in Sweden. This day, the sun doesn't set and there's no night time.

Around the noon time, I went to a big Mid-Summer Day celeration with Ann-Marie and her family in the suburb of Stockholm. She was wearing the traditional dress represented her region (she lives in Katherineholm, a town in the southwest of Stockholm). Many years ago she made her own dress just for the holiday celerations like this. I think the dress is gorgous.

The main activity for Mid-Summer Day is to make the Maypole and put it up on the ground. People dress up in various traditional costums and dance around the Maypole. While waiting for the pole to be finished, people started the picnic with their families on the ground. As soon as the pole was put up, people started to form a circle volunteerily with the Maypole in the center. Most of them were young children. Of course, as a tourist, I couldn't resist joining them. In fact, I would have missed out a lot of fun if I didn't join them. The circle grew bigger and bigger. Finally, the host started to talk and sing children's songs. He instructed us to dance with him. I couldn't understand any Swedish. But I could follow what other people were doing. Sometimes we imitated piglets, sometimes we imitated little dogs. Sometimes we just hopped around the Maypole with our hand in hand. You could actually see a big moving circle around the pole.

After the children's dance, folk dance groups that represented different regions started to showcase their traditional folk dance. Their dance was accompanied by a violin and a harmonica. The performance was so graceful and full of joy as well.