Getting Ready For My Happy Return and Departure...

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Alright, if anybody is still reading this, here's the update: I leave within the next two weeks!!! Out of China, into Nepal, then India, then home.

I finished teaching all my classes-college and children. It's nice to have a little time to do nothing before leaving. I think about the fact that I am really going back to Nepal and I feel so excited, then nauseous hah. I don't take it as a bad sign though, I feel like people don't think it's the smartest decision for me to go there. It's right though, I want to be there, and I can be there, so why not!

So here's the plan: I will spend a month at the children's home with the kids I met last summer. Then I will travel around Nepal for a month or so checking out temples and paragliding and just soaking it all in. After that I will go to India to join a family I knew back in America who will be doing some wonderful work. Hopefully I can be of use to them, possibly helping start an English program. I would love to make use of my experience here in China with teaching English. Alright, so I will spend a couple months there and then head to America to start up life again. I would like nothing more than to work with Refugees again, but we will see!

This is the idea...things are going pretty smoothly except the travel to India isn't quite what I want. Flights have full overnight layovers and bus rides are long and uncomfortable. I would stop overnight in a middle city to keep away from night bus rides. This affects how I get my luggage around too. If I take a plane, I'll just fly out of India...if I take a bus I don't want to take all my luggage on the top of buses so then I will need to go back into Nepal. It would be the most beautiful thing if somehow a nonstop flight became available as my friends thought it would be.

I can't finish without saying I will definitely miss my friends here and some things about my life here. I am excited though to get back to cultural adventures and to be closer to family in America.

Alright, peace!

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Photos

Spring Festival Time
As weather gets cold and Spring Festival approaches, the area becomes adourned with the decor of drying meat and fish.

Cooking Party
Cooking with a couple friends before they go home for the holiday

Crowds...
There is no logic, just pushing

Friends
We took a trip to Xiamen and rested at a temple one day

Hot Springs
We went to a hot springs resort. so relaxing. and so tiring. it was really nice to feel so warm