Goodbye China! Hello America! It is official, we finished our year in the great country of ZhongGuo. Jess, Andrew and I all had the same flight back from Hong Kong and it was so nice to have people to travel with, especially since it was those two. I can't believe our time is over. It did feel like a really long time, but it also went by so quickly. I feel like this should be time I recap and reminisce about all the great times and such...but I'm not going to. None of this is ending. I still have another year in China. I still will be friends with my buddies from China. So yes, things are changing, our year is done, but it is still a happy time and I'm going to look forward to our future encounters instead of focus on our past events.


Before I left I wanted one last picture of our future art building. It has been great seeing the progress that the construction has made. I can't wait to get back in August and see how far it has come along.


My book club had a final outing for the end of the year. The students invited Seven, their English teacher, and Fuat. Both Grania and Vaan (the students) are pretty much fluent and it's been great getting to know them. I can't wait to have another year to hang out with them.


Continuing with checking off things we've been meaning to do all year, Jenny, Marie and I went to the Lohuo Botanical Gardens. It was quite a bit different from what we were expecting but it was still nice to walk around in nature. Instead of having different sections of plants it was more similar to an arboretum. So we wandered around and got lost quite a few times since we didn't have enough Chinese skills to ask things like "Where is the statue" or "Where are the tall trees we heard about". Fortunately we ran into a random white person who was very friendly. He was a 17 year old German student who was studying abroad for the year. He came in with 3 months of Chinese and was put into a house with a family who spoke no English or German so he had to get fluent quickly. He was able to ask some Chinese people for directions and pointed us in the right direction. There was a small bee farm in the park so we all got to try some honey water and Jenny ended up buying a bottle. We didn't have a ton of time so I definitely want to go back again next year.


One thing that we have been talking about all year and have never done (until now) was to go to Xi Chong beach in Longgang. It was three hours away from anything but it was worth it. When we arrived there was literally no one else on the beach for quite a stretch. It was absolutely beautiful. The water was still a bit cool but we took advantage of having the beach and still went in the water and splashed around. We also flew a kite and Jess and I walked along the beach to see how far we could go. For lunch we went to a local restaurant on the beach where....the entire staff was smoking Marijuana. It was quite comical. For anything we had to get the staff's attention multiple times and even then they didn't seem happy about having to wait on us. Afterward we headed back home. The taxi driver was not happy that half of us were still wet from the ocean but we coaxed him into taking us. Jenni and I ended up crashing at Jess's place since our homes were still a lot further. We made cookies and just sat around and chatted. It was a very nice evening.


Our final family dinner. The family + Jenni headed to Longgang for a final night together before we all shipped of to the states. We had sloppy joes and mac and cheese. Very good. Plus my very first sloppy joe. After dinner I presented a slide show of our time together this year. Then I had my last night crashing in Jess's room so we stayed up for awhile chatting about life and going back to the states. It was really nice having our final time with our group that successfully prevailed through the China experience.


Jess and I were talking just the other day about how China is just a continuous adventure. She commented that she's been living in her neighborhood for almost a year and ended up getting lost just going to the store by taking the wrong bus. Our conversation came to reality this morning when I went to meet up with Jess at Dongmen. I happened to leave my school during rush hour and it was insane! I had to wait for three buses before one had enough room to fit me in (as I was fighting thirty other people for a spot) and then the subway was almost too full to get on! That never happens. Then at the two metro stops that are near a lot of the business buildings just had floods upon floods of Chines men and women headed off to work. There were so many people!


American food! As a final goodbye and thank you I made (with the help of Fuat and some of the Chinese teachers) mashed potatoes, spaghetti with homemade sauce and ceasar salad. I invited all the English teachers in my office and couple of Fuat's friends to come join. I was really worried that they weren't going to like the food, especially my contact teacher Brian who said that the only American food he likes is bread, or that I wouldn't have enough. But everyone said it was really good and we had enough for left overs! Even at one point Brian ran across the room to get seconds yelling "I love American food!!". It was a really fun event and everyone seemed to have a great time. I especially loved Turner, the head of our department, helping out. He was given the job of helping with the sauce and he seemed to be very proud of himself.