Location: Beijing

After some long 12 hour flights and lugging bags onto an airport shuttle, we’ve all officially made it to China! LongYun met everyone at the Beijing airport and shuttled back and forth until the last students arrived. Flights landed anywhere between 12:30 and 7:30pm with Lisa, Esther, and Arielle arriving on the earlier end. Next, Kohl, Aden, Ayla, Ella, and Jake landed at a different terminal from the first 3 students. Because the first 8 students were all already at the airport, they joined together and decided to squeeze into the hotel shuttle bus and made their way back to the hotel with LongYun. Carly arrived soon after, which meant only 2 more go! After our official check-ins with Evan and a nice first dinner of orange chicken, dumplings, fried rice, and vegetables, our final two family members arrived…Sophia and Leyla, welcome! With full bellies and just about no more energy to spare, we powered through our orientation where we discussed group rules and how to make this trip the best it can be. Lucky for us, tomorrow’s meet time is only 8:30, which gives us a solid 10 hours to sleep tonight! Sorry everyone, no pictures for tonight’s blog, just lots of sleep! Tomorrow, however, is the one, the only… Great Wall! So stay tuned for our next blog which will not only be packed with photos, but will be written by our student leader of the day. Zai Jian for now!