On my way!

31.5 Hours. This is the amount of time that I will spend traveling to get from my house in small town Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania to Shanghai China. I am currently sitting on a train, two hours into my travels as I write this. I had to drive thirty minutes to the train station in Harrisburg, then take a four-and-a-half-hour train to JFK airport, then fly sixteen and a half hours to Taipei, Taiwan, and then fly another two hours to Shanghai China, where I will land two days ahead of when I left. That doesn’t even include my time spent waiting at airports or in layovers. This will not be my longest travel period (getting back from Kenya took forty-two hours), but I am sure not looking to it. Regardless, I am starting to truly get excited. For the last nine months I have been telling people that I am going to Shanghai, and now it is finally here. It still hasn’t hit me.

My program doesn’t start until February 24^th, but I am going eleven days early to travel with my Aunt. My Aunt is currently living in Zhengzhou, China, a provincial capital city about three and a half hours from Shanghai by high speed train. She has been there since last February, teaching English at an elementary school. She is going to meet me in Shanghai, where we will spend four days. Chinese New Year is on February 16^th, and we will be celebrating that in Shanghai. We will also be exploring the typical tourist attractions as well as taking a food tour. We will spend three hours walking around with a guide who will take us to different street vendors to taste Chinese and Shanghainese delicacies.

After our time in Shanghai, we will fly south to Xiamen, a coastal city which is a two-hour flight from Shanghai. It is the most popular destination for domestic tourism. Here we will adventure around national parks and explore the colonial influences on history and culture. From here, we will take a train up to Longyan, a small city with a unique architecture style where all of the houses and buildings are circular. We will only be here for two days, before taking another train to Wuyi Shan, a beautiful, mountainous city. It is said that the mountain range here inspired the setting for Avatar. We will spend three days here before parting and heading home. For my aunt, this will be a two-hour flight. For me, this will mean a three-and-a-half-hour train ride back to Shanghai. I will then meet up with the Global Bachelor’s Cohort and begin orientation.

I have had a lot of people tell me what to expect and give me ideas of what I will encounter, but I am going into this experience with a completely open mind. This will be one of the few times where I am able to uproot my entire life to go and live in a new country, and I intend to take full advantage of that.

If you’re interested in following my journey through pictures, then give me a follow on Instagram at @max_leo43.