It's Time to Go Home

We're going home.


It's Sunday morning and after 10 days we're preparing to go home. Our travels in China have come to an end and although we are anxious to catch up with our families and friends, it's somewhat bitter sweet to be leaving China. It has been an exciting 10 days filled with much activity, diverse experiences, and a great deal of learning. It will be hard to say goodbye to a country we have come to understand more fully during the time we have spent here.


A wake-up call this morning has us up and preparing for what will be a very long day. We'll go to the market to pick up some last minute items and then hurry off to the airport via bus through the early afternoon traffic. Our plane will take off in just a few hours and we'll fly back through time and arrive in Chicago, about the same time we leave Beijing! Ah, those time zones!


It has been a wonderful experience being in China with others eager to explore more about topics of personal interest as well as topics related to their fields of study. It seems each experience we had spoke volumes and meant a great deal to specific members of our group. As we reflected on what we enjoyed most about the trip, the answers were different for each member of our group! For me, it is definitely the people we have met as we traveled across China including our very special guides who shared their knowledge of the cities we traveled through as well as experiences from their personal lives.


Another experience that has meant a great deal to me was visiting the countryside of China. The countryside truly shows the varied faces of China, the differences in lifestyles between rural and city life. Traveling through the countryside helped me see more clearly the traditions in place and the transformations taking place in this rapidly changing country, though the changes are exceedingly more rapid in the cities.


All in all our experiences have taught us valuable life lessons and we have made connections to people in a country we hope to stay connected to. One lost iPhone later, we are on our way home, changed, even though we came to explore changes in a country far from our own homes.