Eye-opening trip to China!

This year, I flew to China with my Mandarin class (I take 3rd year Mandarin at my school). I was really nervous the night before - I had never really been away from home before, and the trip was two weeks in a foreign country halfway across the world - but my parents assured me that I would be upset with myself if I didn't go. I am so glad that I decided to go (and not just because it would be a huge waste of money if I didn't), because it was the best trip I have ever taken! My class first flew to Shanghai, where we visited Shanghai High School. EdOdyssey organized the second part of my trip, where I traveled to Huzhou and Beijing. The trip was really well organized, with tons of fun activities, amazing restaurants and food options, and really nice accommodations. One thing I really loved about the trip was all of the variety. For example, we did a range of touristy attractions (like the Forbidden City and the Great Wall), but we also did many activities that allowed us to immerse ourselves in the culture of the locals. One of my personal favorite activities was visiting a local high school in Huzhou. At this high school, a lot of the students had never met someone who was not from China, and you can imagine their excitement when they saw a group of American teenagers. They wanted to add us on WeChat, take pictures with us, play games with us, and ask us a thousand questions about us and our lives. I felt like a celebrity! It was really fun, and gave me some perspective about what life is like outside of America. This is just one example of one day I loved from the trip. Another thing that made the trip great was Peter McGovern - our EdOdyssey representative. He was super knowledgeable about all of the places we visited, and told us tons of facts that I would never have even thought about otherwise. I learned about bamboo (did you know that bamboo can grow almost 3 feet in 24 hours?), local culture (I never knew how important it was to know about the traditions of tea if you want to do business in China) , landmarks (the Great Wall of China is more than 20,000 km long!) and so much more. Because of this, I was able to leave China with a new knowledge about life and culture in different parts of the world. I really feel like this trip enriched my knowledge and views on the world, and opened my eyes to many new perspectives and possibilities. Of course, none of this would have been possible without EdOdyssey.