Day 23- Hangzhou

All I keep hearing from people in the group is "I don't want to go home".  I feel the same way.  It sounds bad in the sense that our friends and family are on the other side of things and excited for us to come back.  Eventually, we all would get extremely homesick and of course want to go back, but as of right now, I think we want to just continue this experience.  I, for one, had no idea what to expect in coming to China.  I don't think anything can really prepare you or give any accurate perception of what something will be like until you are there experiencing it for yourself.  One thing that I had not been expecting was to fall completely in love with China.  Of course, I wanted to go on the trip to see China, experience another culture, but then to fall head over heels in love with it is a completely different thing.  People visit places and say "yeah, it is really pretty there", or "I really enjoyed my trip", but I think it means a lot to say "I absolutely love this country".  One thing that has contributed to this newfound love is the students of Nankai University.  They took us in and showed us their culture, welcoming us eagerly and wanting to learn just as much about us in return.  If we had been here just to sightsee, just as tourists, this experience would have completely different.  I wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of the students, you have no idea how much you have affected us!