My uncle heard of a week-long trip for Taiwanese students. It involved sightseeing as well as to represent good Chinese-Taiwanese relations. He talked to the people in charge of the “camp” and they let me join (I think they were low on students and I'm part Taiwanese anyways). The trip involved meeting Chinese students and traveling around Central China. One of the destinations, Zhiangjiajie National Park, I was already attracted to because the pictures I'd seen of it were beautiful. I have not had access to internet so I just have to add a lot of updates all at once.

Today we traveled from Shanghai to Changsha, the capital of the Hunan Province located in South-Central China. The trip to the Shanghai airport was uneventful. Everybody going on the trip made their way to the airport terminal separately and we only met each other right before boarding the plane. It was very awkward because nobody talked to each other. I'm used to being the shy one person in America, but it seems like everybody in China are way shyer than I am. I would try to converse but there is a bit of a language barrier. 3 hours later we arrived in Changsha and my first step out of the airport I felt like I walked into an oven. It was like I got my breath knocked out of me and couldn't breathe. The heat and humidity were nothing like I've experienced before. Even at night it doesn't cool down and the wind is constantly hot. The first night we just arrived at the hotel and walked to dinner, the food was delicious as usual. I was nervous at dinner because the group from Nantong (My cousins Jeff and Paul, Annie, and I) ate with the adults, who kept asking us questions. The trip was supposed to be only for Taiwanese college students, which none of us were. They people in charge just randomly assigned us Taiwanese colleges. I was supposed to be an exchange student from America, but just let other people talk for me. After dinner we were free to do whatever, so the Nantong group went to a popular pedestrian street full of shops. We only walked for 15 minutes and already had to stop for a drink because of the heat. After traveling down most of the street we decided to play some pool. So we went to a pool hall and all the tables were full. The workers said there was a 15 minute wait so we waited, then they said another 30 minutes and we left. Jeff said he looked up where a bar was supposed to be and started walking towards the address. The bar was a very far walk away and the street kept looking more and more empty. After about 25 minutes of walking we finally arrived at the address to see that the bar didn't exist. Disheartened and covered in sweat we decided to go back to the hotel and rest.