In Tianjin 1st Week - Day 1; the arrival and departure.

First of all, I want to give all my thanks to Lina, our very nice and pretty tour guide. She has led us throughout our whole tour in Beijing, guiding us through many of the beautiful locations in Beijing. To make it even better, Paul was kind enough to allow the entire group to sign a farewell card to Lina, although I cannot say it was enough. As we departed from Beijing, she was so kind enough to send us off with a gift; a keychain with pandas stacked on one another. I feel that this keychain symbolized the friendship and gratefulness that she has provided not to myself, but to our entire group as a family. We all give our best wishes and thanks not only to Lida, but to her soon to be child. I hope the child will be as nice, pretty, gracious, and friendly. Spread the Minnesota Nice.

Soon after we leave, we are taken by our new tour-guide, Lisa (correct me). After our departure from our hotel in Beijing, we visit the Temple of Heaven. The location has very much meaning, as the main point I learned was that by praising the God, that you will have a very great harvest. Within the location of the temple, there were many elderly people, doing Tai Chi, playing hoop toss, and some sort of footbag activities. I had the feeling that if you were there at the location, it would bring you a long life.

I promise the footbag toy is in the air, I am just a bad photographer.

Now for the visit to Tianjin. New people, new places, new friendships. We first meet our newfound friends at a restaurant, which I forget the name of. We are then seated, and I meet this fellow, which I already forgot his name (shame on me). As soon as we start talking, NBA was the first thing that we had in common. What made me so happy inside was when he was wearing a shirt, "BEAT THE HEAT", with the Boston Celtics emblem, which is our favorite NBA teams. Oh my, he plays basketball, and compares himself to Derrick Rose from the Chicago Bulls, quick to the basket. Now, I am a little worried about how good he will be when I interact with him and the other students when they have the weekend off; time to get in the zen before I possibly get my ankles broken on the court. But what is said will have to be proven on the court. What a great conversation, along with the big interaction with some of the students we will be able to meeting tomorrow when it will be our first day of classes.