In Beijing

Well, I finally made it! The flights here from Portland were unbelievably long, the jet lag almost crippling, but I made it to Beijing. I may have only been here for a day and a half, but so much has already happened. Right now, I'm writing from a small hostel near Tiananmen Square, where us volunteers are staying in preparation for the voyage to the village. I've had limited contact with the other volunteers before this, so yesterday was really the first time I was introduced to them. Right now there are around 15 of us, and we will meet the Chinese volunteers over at the village, which will bring our numbers up to around 30. All of the other volunteers are great sports, each of them excited for the experience that is ahead of us. While for most this is their first time on the program, a handful of them are actually veterans of the experience, and are a great source of information and tips. Two of them, Jerry and Christina, I especially enjoy being around, and I'm sure we'll have a great time together. The cast of volunteers is quite varied: Chris and Kabeer, the two other boys in the group other than Jerry, and me are from D.C and London, respectively. A lot of the girls in the group actually come from other Asian nations, like Korea and Vietnam. Overall, we all seem to connect well, and will undoubtedly be able to work together greatly.

As I said before, we are right now in Beijing, waiting for tomorrow for when head out to the village we will be working at. The trip will be a train ride over 24 hours long! Of course, that does not mean we are doing nothing while in Beijing, and to pass the time, we are visiting a few notable landmarks. Today, we had a massive hike on the Great Wall, and tomorrow, we will be visiting Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. While in Beijing, we have been eating at a restaurant that specializes in Peking duck, which is delicious. So up until now, everything has been great here. The only tiny negative point is my roommate, who is one of the adult supervisors. He snores crazy loud, so loud, that it's still loud when I have my noise cancelling headphones on! Despite that, I'm happy (if a bit sleep deprived). I hope that I can write more soon!