written by Spencer Reed.

Hey everyone!

Today was a very jam-packed and emotional day.  It started out in the morning with a farewell to our exchange families.  They have been so great to all of us and it was quite difficult to say good bye and properly thank these wonderful people that opened up not only their homes but also their minds to us foreign exchange students.  After saying goodbye to the families, we attended a couple morning classes like we had the days before.  We then went to pick up our suitcases and bring them to the schoolyard where we took pictures with the students before we left.  It was a really fun time and we were all able to share a last laugh with our Chinese friends before leaving.  However, when they walked us to the bus before we left it was quite hard to say bye.  To be completely honest, when we first got to Zhengzhou, I was counting down the days before we left because I was a little worried about how the stay would go, but as we were boarding the bus I realized that I had grown quite close to a lot of the students and wished there were more days to count down.

After leaving the school and our students, we then went to wait at the train station.  We had a two hour wait there where we all caught up on some much needed sleep.  At about one, we got on the train to Taiyun.  It was a four hour ride where I again got to slide some sleep in.  I love the train rides because I think the countryside of China is beautiful and it amazes me just how much farmland there is here.

Sadly, when we got off the long train ride, we then had to take an hour and a half bus ride to Pingyao.  The ride wasn’t that bad and was headlined by our new tour girl Maggie singing for us.  Following the bus ride to Pingyao, we couldn’t actually take the bus into the city, so we then funneled into small cars and rode into this cool little ancient city.  This city is definitely the farthest from Western civilization we have been so far.  We then arrived at our hotel where we were led to our rooms.  The place we are staying is incredible. We are all in this courtyard type place together where we are the only ones.  It is decorated very traditionally and gives the impression of what life here would be like long ago.  Although we are only here a short time, I think will definitely be a fantastic part of our trip.

From,

Spencer and the Chinese squad

PS- I love and miss you fam, looking forward to comoing back home soon.