EF Tours China

DanVsWorld started as a travel blogging Wordpress site for me to reflect on some of my most interesting and enjoyable travels abroad. Unfortunately, like all Wordpress websites over time, it was hacked to the point of no return. I had to take down the original version and several iterations later, ended up here.

I finally decided to go through some of my old databases and post some of the highlights from my favorite trips I had previously blogged about, starting with... my first EF tour.

My brother, Drew, was in AP Chinese his senior year of high school and I was able to tag a long with a group of high schoolers, their principal, ex-principal and Chinese teacher on an incredible trip. We toured Beijing, Shanghai and Pingzhong where we stayed with a host family. Here are some of my favorite memories from that trip!

The Highlights

Chinese officials playing basketball when we arrived in Beijing. Basketball is huge over there - many of the college and high school students played frequently.

Bold imagery of Mao Zedong in prominent areas

Myself, Mrs Geary and Mr Gosh (ex-Hopkinton High School principals) hanging on the Great Wall. It was insanely steep.

We gave presentations to multiple middle school and high school grade classrooms. Many of them enjoyed practicing their English with us. Lets just say... their English was much better than our Chinese.

Practicing our calligraphy skills with some activities the high school set up for us. I learned how to paint bamboo!

White Americans were (are?) very rare in this area of China so a lot of the students were even asking us for autographs 🤣. Out in the city, taxi drivers would pull over just to yell 'Hello, how are you?' to us in an attempt to practice English.

A before and after of some of the most delcious and spicy noodles Drew and I have had the pleasure of eating. Our host student (who we stayed overnight at their house), brought us to one of his favorite local restaurants.

Post noodles 🍜.

Our host student allowed me to play a couple of games of Counter Strike and League of Legends on the Chinese servers. After the first game he immediately demoted me to playing against bots only 🥉

Each student from the AP Chinese class was paired with a host family to stay with for a night. Afterwards, the family's offered us beautiful varying gifts, ours giving Drew and I a beautiful piece of local art work. Meanwhile, we had made them a Hopkinton bag with some local T-Shirts and trinkets.

An older man doing Tai Chi in the local park. Local parks were a very popular spot for congregation of all ages, and elderly people stretching, working out, or playing board games was incredibly common.

There are so many more pictures and amazing stories from this trip that have been lost in the internet and old hard drives. Cricket Leo, learning tai chi, students eating snake, losing Mary Kate in the underground market, karaoke, swords, laser pointers that light things on 🔥 - so although I am missing some of my favorite pics, I am glad at least some have survived until now to keep a vague record of our wonderful first trip to China.