你好朋友们！Greetings from China

Well for all those worried souls, I have arrived in Beijing with no problems. We spent Thursday night in L.A. in meetings with AFS and NSLI-Y, and we left for the airport on Friday morning around 4 AM. We had a quick layover in San Francisco and than headed for Beijing. The flight went great (except for the food), it was about 12 hours long and here’s the crazy part, we left LA on Thursday and arrived in Beijing on Saturday evening. Where did Friday go? Needless to say, I was pretty exhaused. But AFS-China has been so gracious and generous. Last night I had my first traditional style meal, quite different than how Americans eat. The plate was about the size of my palm, and all the food was in the middle on a spin wheel and you would just grab what you wanted before somebody else spun it away. But I definitely need some work with the chopsticks. After dinner, we went for a quick walk in Beijing, I found out that today the 28th is a family holiday here in China, so there were fireworks everywhere. Anyways, today we have meeting in the morning and then we go to the Great Wall in the afternoon. Don’t worry, I'll be sure to take tons of pictures. Tomorrow, we visit the U.S Embassy, so we will see what that has in store for us and than the day after were are put on a train and shipped to ShiJiaZhuang. It’s going to be great!! Well its almost five in the morning here and we need to be up at 7 so I’m going to try to catch some more sleep, Thanks for checking in and I'll try to post before I leave Beijing, because I’m not sure how this will work in ShiJiaZhuang. Anyways I miss you all, Peace and Love,

Ben