The End

My last days in China were pretty frantic, overscheduled ones. All of a sudden it became apparent how many things I still needed to do in the short period of time I had left in China, and everything took longer than I expected, so a handful of things just never got done. I spent a lot of time doing last-minute shopping and making sure I had presents for people, plus some last-minute bonding. I packed here and there, in between events in my busy schedule, or at 5 am before going to sleep. I don't think I slept more than 3 hours in a row that last week. On my last full day in Beijing, I ran errands on campus, went out to lunch with my tutor, got my hair braided into multicolored dreads (multicolored string in the braids - no dyed hair here), got a facial and massage, and went dancing with my Hanyu class. I had to wash my new braids 3 times to get the smell of smoke from the club out of them, which is maybe why they didn't last as long as I might have hoped...

On the morning of the 30th I went out to brunch with Richard, Casey, and Pei, and then enlisted one of our familiar cab people to take me to the airport. It was raining, I hadn't gotten decent sleep in ages, all the goodbyes were stressing me out even further, and I honestly just wanted nothing more than to get on the plane already. As much as I love China, I was ready to come home, at least for a little bit. This Saturday I'll be leaving the country again, this time to volunteer in an orphanage in India for 5 weeks, and once again I find myself stressing out trying to squeeze lots of activities into a short period of time. The adventure never stops!