Where I Have Been

When we arrived we were in Kunming for a week.  We stayed at a hostel and walked to our home base, the program house, every morning.  We had breakfast on the street each morning, which consisted of foods I had never seen or dreamed of, but were completely delicious.  I'm not exactly sure what all it was, but it was greasy and sweet, so I didn't complain.  We did a scavenger hunt during the week, and I bought a guitar, which has brought out a lot of great musical talent.  Actually, someone just started playing it.  After of week of Kunming and getting all the rules in place and some group bonding time, we set out for a week of trekking.  Our trek took us to the second most famous rice terraces in China.  It was long bus rides on back roads for hours and hours.  But we trekked through the terraces and saw the sun rise over them.  After that we headed to a small town called Bamei.  It was discovered only seven years ago, and it is an amazingly beautiful place.  No roads lead there, and it is surrounded by huge limestone cliffs, so you have to take boats through cave systems to get in and out.  While there we were treated to a folk dance by the village children, and participated in the macarena.  Twice.  We also taught the children how to limbo, and had them chanting "how low can you go!  How low can you go!" All along the way we were split up into teams to complete vaguely Amazing Race type challenges, getting to certain locations and finding the best deals on hotels (apparently, spas/brothels are cheap to spend the night at!).  We came back to Kunming on a sleeper bus, which is a wild experience.  I can't say I recommend it.  The day we got back it was our first day of homestays.  We were briefed about our families and some last minute dos and don'ts.  It was really intense as we all waited for our families to show up, copying helpful phrases into our notebooks.  My host mother's boyfriend picked me up and drove me back to my new house, where I have been living with my host grandmother and host little brother.  My host grandmother is tiny and wonderful.  She laughs a lot, and we took a walk one day while holding hands.  My host brother says that I am his best foreigner friend, and took me to see a movie (Tom Cruise's Valkyrie), with a friend of his.  We hung out at a Chinese arcade.  It was a blast.  Now we are in the swing of things, with class during the day, and Independent study time in the afternoon.  We have two hours of Chinese language in the morning, followed by a lesson by the teachers, lunch, maybe another lesson, or ISP time for the rest of the day.  We chose our ISP's last week, and I am focusing on music.  I had my first Guzheng lesson today, which is a chinese lap harp thing.  Google it, it is wild.  I am super excited about continuing my studies, and on Friday we leave for a rural homestay/ service project.  Now that I have more free time I will hopefully be able to update more often!

Love
Jack!