by Dhruv Mulik
Today is the day we get to meet our host families! We woke up at a respectable 6am to allow for a 7:30 departure. Above is an image from the hotel window. Overlooking the beautiful city of while reminiscing the amazing last couple days which consisted of visiting the Confucius temple and 石臼胡(shijiuhu)Village, both picturedabove. Now we will take 1 hour 20 minute drive from our hotel to the high speed railway station in Nanjing,to Zhengzhou! Here we will arrive at our sister school and meet our exchange family!
We arrived at the train station! Before our train ride, we had about 25 minutes of free roaming around the train station. I settled on an Oreo blizzard and hotdog from diary queen before we embark to Zhengzhou. As visible in the image, the train station is massive, filled with many shops. Apparently, Beijing’s station is 3 times the size of the one here in Nanjing, that will be exciting to see! Off to Zhengzhou!
We have arrived in Zhengzhou! The train ride was about 1 hour and 45 minutes. Upon arrival. We stopped for a quick lunch within the train station. We had KFC, although not too different from the US, the sweet and sour sauce was very different and consisted of much more flavor. The Coke here in China is also quite different, containing a more spicy flavor similar to an Indian soda called “Thumbs Up”. We now have a 20 minute ride to our sister school, Henan Experimental School.
We have arrived at our sister school, Henan Experimental School! It was a surreal experience meeting our exchange students for the first time. I felt truly pure joy as I saw Mike( my exchange student)for the first time. We were warmly greeted as we entered the classroom. Where we met the teacher, and gave self-introductions in Chinese. In English, we also explained the courses we are taking. We then watched a couple videos of students reciting their English homework. Also interesting to see how there are Chinese flags held high in every classroom and around campus, compared to the lack of American flags at Cary Academy. After drama and politics class, we played thirty minutes of basketball. It was the most fun I’ve had in a while. Not a word of English was spoken on the court yet we had an amazing time while playing.
