China. What to say about China. Changzhou in particular. It’s a beautiful country and has been quite the experience. After our first dinner here we had our first teacher meeting and thus started the adventure. We haven’t been able to leave the campus much yet because we aren’t yet registered at the police department but that’s been an adventure of it’s own. After our meeting and before we headed to bed the first night a couple of our friends in our group who to a different route to China and had been here a little bit longer showed us around the campus and outside a little bit. Our first morning here Lorilei and I woke up around 6:15 and went running on the track that is located at our school, we have also done so this morning and I think we’ll make a bit of a habit of it. Afterwards we went and got ready for the day and went exploring a little. We discovered a dance room for Lorilei in one of the buildings which was quite an adventure. We also discovered a little Eden within the bounds of our schools campus. A beautiful little garden which I think would be a great place to sit and think. After our little discovery we spent some time to ourselves and in the afternoon the group got together and headed out. We went into town and got some money from the ATMs and had the opportunity to do a little bit of shopping. That was a new and exciting experience. It seems like everything is a little bit expensive here but that’s really not the case. The exchange rate is about 6.5 so 1 U.S. dollar can go pretty far. When Lorilei and I went shopping we spent about 108 Yuan which is the Chinese currency and is really only about 15 dollars U.S. Later that night we had yet another meeting and with a couple of our other teacher friends we attempted to watch a movie. However, that didn’t really work out too well as we were all exhausted and were drifting in and out most of the time. So eventually we just gave up and headed to bed. The beds here are rather hard compared to the states it’s a little bit like a shelf with a little bit of padding. They aren’t too bad though but they are hard on my back so I have a tendency to sleep on my side. Today Lorilei and I woke up around 6 again and went running. After we ran we headed over to breakfast and that was definitely a new experience. It wasn’t bad, however, it consisted of a kind of rice porridge which was rather bland and a kind of cake that kind of tasted like a tater tot. After breakfast we hung out in our room for awhile and I read. Then Nick ended up wandering by and so he came around and we played nerts and Egyptian rat screw, after which it was time for lunch so we headed over for that. About an hour after lunch a group of us headed outside and played basketball for a little while. It was nice to be active. Then we headed over to the head teachers room for yet another meeting and now they are having personal interviews to try to determine where to put us as far as teaching. That’s where I stand so far and this adventure keeps moving forward. Wish me luck. LET THE ADVENTURE BEGIN!!!!

Well all I made it to China okay. It was a little bit of a long and tedious journey though. Our flight out to San Francisco got delayed about 45 minutes so we got stuck waiting at the airport for a little while. However, that’s not the kicker, the real kicker is when we got to San Francisco we found out our flight to Shanghai had been delayed until 9:30 the next morning due to aircraft maintenance so thus began the adventure as we waited at the San Francisco airport for several hours while our head teachers tried to work everything out as far as getting us meal vouchers and a hotel for the night from the airline. It took several hours but they were finally able to accomplish the feat and we had about an hour to use our meal vouchers and eat at the airport after which we headed to our hotel for the night. We spent the night at the holiday inn express in San Francisco and headed out to the airport bright and early in the morning. After which we waited at the airport some more until our plane arrived and then we boarded our plane to Shanghai. What an adventure that was. A 12 hour flight. It was long but it gave me plenty of time to read my book and they showed several movies during the flight including Jane Eyre which was a wonderful movie and we had a couple of in flight meals and were well taken care of. After 12 long hours we finally landed in Shanghai and waited, eventually exiting the plane. As soon as I stepped off of the plane humidity hit me like a ton of bricks. Here it is very humid. It hasn’t been too hot yet but the humidity is killer. After I got off of the plane I waited for the rest of my group and we headed to customs to show our passports and get everything taken care of to enter the country. Once our group had finished going through customs we headed to the greeting area to find one of our coordinators who welcomed us and after waiting for a few minutes we headed to the long distance bus. After loading all of our stuff on the bus we got on and had another fun filled 3 hour bus ride before we got to Changzhou. We arrived and had the fun filled adventure of carrying all of our luggage up about 100 stairs to our rooms. We picked out our rooms and set our stuff down and headed down just in time to make it for dinner. Welcome to China.

A New Adventure

Well this is it. I agreed to go to China with my best friend and roommate Lorilei Escalante and we head out it about a week and a half. I am really scared but also very excited. It hasn't felt quite real to me for awhile but today and yesterday we had training on the teaching method we'll be using in china and including ourselves about a third of our group was in the training. I'm really looking forward to it because we already have a really good group dynamic with those members of our group. It should be a great adventure and I'm starting to get ready to go.
I still need to pack for china. That's on my agenda for today and tomorrow, and if anyone would like anything from china please let me know and I'll see what I can do to get it and bring it back for you. This is definitely a new adventure. I've never been out of the country before and now I'm headed to China. I leave on august 25th at 11:11am and it's about 23 hours on  planes or in airports, then it's another couple of hours from the airport to our school after we get to the airport. I guess its time... take a deep breath and take the plunge...