Authentic, Challenging, Rewarding

On my Gotoco trip, I was placed in Jiaozhou, a small city outside Qingdao on the east coast of China. I taught English to all different age levels, from 5 years to adult, and during my off time I explored the city with my fellow Gotoco teachers and host teachers. It was authentic in that I got to meet a lot of locals and experience the city through their eyes (although the language barrier made it difficult to talk to most Chinese people; the experience was authentic insofar as it can be for a western visitor). It was a challenge, inevitably, to adjust to a different world, but it was a challenge I was up for, and, maybe, I needed...and the last adjective I chose was rewarding. What rewards did I get from it? I may still need to contemplate my experience to comprehend fully, but now, fresh from my flight back to the west, I can say that I gained a wider vision of the world, valuable teaching experience plus a TEFL certificate, and a whole lot of fun, maybe enough to satiate my sense of adventure for up to four months. Gotoco, as an organization, I can commend, as they fulfilled all their obligations satisfactorily, with clear, thorough, and timely communications on all fronts.