Xin yin kuai le!

Happy New Year! Well, Chinese New Year :)

Last night definitely made up for our lack of our New Year! Half of the team went to the home of some factory workers who were unable to go home for the Chinese New Year. We enjoyed a "hot pot" meal followed by setting off our own fireworks! It was such a fun time. It was also really sweet to be able to spend time with people who were not able to go home to be with their families, which is a HUGE part of the tradition here. I'm sure it meant a lot to them to be able to spend their holiday with foreigners!

In the meantime, we've made it back from Zhengzhou and it's been SO great to be back with our leaders! In some ways, it was like being without parents, so it was nice to get back to them and come back with a new appreciation for all that they do for the team. I've also realized that I actually learned some Chinese during our time in Zhengzhou. I actually know four Chinese characters now as well as more of the language (kind of)!

Back to Zhengzhou...on one of our last days there, we went to the Kung Fu/Shaolin Temple. It was an interesting piece of Chinese culture/history to experience. In addition, it was in the mountains, far away from the city, which was so nice to see since all we'd seen so far was cities.

SURPRISE! We get to go to Beijing during a few of our last days in China! We just found out last week, so we're pretty excited about that opportunity. Just thought I'd give you all a little "heads up" on that, in case you were wondering. Great Wall, here we come!

Sorry that I'm all over the place in this post. Perhaps it's the smoke-filled internet cafe that's keeping my mind from being focused! Haha...it's definitely a different culture around here, but it's all part of the experience.

Hope all is well with all of you and thank you for checking out the blog!!!