The Chinese do not build elevators in buildings that are 6 stories or shorter. Some of us had wondered, before the trip, why are most Chinese people thinner than most Americans even though they eat a lot of carbs? Well it's probably because they have to walk everyhere. There are steps all over the place and the terrain is pretty hilly. It doesn't take long for that quick relief of flat land to quickly start taking you up or down. That's what we realized, is that we needed all of the food we could get to just maintain the amount of energy that we burn in a day. My apartment here is 6 floors up. The school I work at has 4 floors and to get to any of the classrooms I have to at least ... read more

When we arrived in Beijing we saw red and blue flashing lights at random corners. At first we thought that they were actual police cars, but when we saw them, they were just posts. We asked Wu laoshi about it and he said that there is a phone that directly calls the police. In the US, we know that for traffic violations such as driving recklessly can get you a ticket. Well with the way that everyone drives in China, we wondered what do the police do? Well we found out one thing. The first night that we were in Kunming, the water in the apartment was not properly working. So, the Minds Abroad people took us to a hotel for the night while they fixed the problem. When we entered the hotel there was a ... read more

Here are some photos of my trip so far.... read more