A Time to Travel...

Just like in the U.S., China has a winter break in between semesters for colleges and universities. In the U.S., this break is planned around Christmas but in China it is scheduled around Chinese New Year and the Spring Festival (Chunjie in Chinese), two huge festivals for the Chinese. That being said, you can probably guess that I am on winter break!! It started about a week ago and I have four weeks remaining...YAY!
Of course, since it's such a long break, I have some traveling planned and it starts tomorrow! I am heading to Sichuan Province in Southern China...it's the big orange blog on the map to the right. I may also be going to Yunnan Province which is directly below the orange blog. My Chinese friend, Aroma, who I met in Yinchuan nearly 6 years ago has been inviting me to her hometown for well...hmmm...yes, about 6 years and I am finally going to make the trip! She already has a ton planned - we'll be in Chengdu for a few days, then the mountains of Ya'an, then her hometown of Mianyang, and then possibly onto Kunming in Yunnan. I will be there for about 10 days.
When I return to Tianjin, I will be spending some time celebrating the Chinese New Year and Spring Festival with some of my students and their families. This should be a very interesting cultural experience for me as it is such an important festival and there are so many traditions. I am very honored to have been invited by 3 students to spend this holiday with their families.
AND...yep, there's more...in the middle of February I will head to Thailand for my organization's conference and a few extra days to see the sights of Chiang Mai. Yes, yes this is a hard life but I just want to be sure to have the best and most interesting experiences so that you don't get bored with my stories! :)
I will probably not blog while I am in Sichuan Province but I will try to get some pictures and stories up before I leave for Thailand. There should be a lot to write about over the next month!
As always, thanks so much for reading my blog...I hope that you enjoy it; I know that I am comforted by bringing you along with me! :)