My journey to Tongling began Saturday morning with a two and a half hour flight from Beijing to Hefei, the capital city of Anhui province. Once we arrived at the airport in Hefei we then took a two and a half hour bus ride to Tongling. It was a great ride through a part of China most people never get a chance to see. We passed rice farm after rice farm watching farmers walk across the land engaged in various tasks. I felt like I was witnessing something from a different period of China's history, a time when it still remained untouched from the outside world.

As soon as the bus crossed the busy Yangtze River we quickly entered the city of Tongling. Although it may be one of China's smaller cities, with a mere population of 740,000, it is definitely one of its more important ones in that it is known as China's Ancient Bronze Capital. Copper mining is everything here, along with gold, silver, tin, and iron.

Monday marked the opening of the First China (Tongling) International Sculpture Exhibition which is being held at the International Copper Sculpture Park. To kick things off, Li Ming, the mayor of Tongling, greeted the crowd filled with reporters from various Chinese news agencies along with the artists themselves who are visiting from all over the world.

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