Leah and I at the hotel...taking advantage of the complimentary robe and...sash?

Hello from 5-star heaven! Our training has come to an end, and for the next four days, we will be living the high life. This represents the capstone to PST--the time when we will get our assignments, meet our bosses, and hopefully relax and debrief a bit. The hotel is a good start--it is beautiful and probably the most luxury I'll see for the next two years.



This week has been exhausting (and I am exhausted,) but great. The above photo is of my entire training group (Group Orange, or "Orange Crush") at our host family appreciation dinner. We ate at a Western-style (with Chinese characteristics) buffet. The pizza was tasty, and it was amusing to see my family eat with a knife and a fork...the tables had been turned. I think they enjoyed it. Dinner was followed by an extended photo-love-fest, where everyone was photographed several times. All of my training colleagues can be seen above; in the center is Ben's grandmother (and my surrogate grandmother) and on the right are my language teachers. After dinner was over we all reconvened at a KTV, sans host families. For those of you not in-the-know, a KTV is a karaoke bar of sorts, where you rent out a room for a certain amount of hours and all the cheesy music you can belt out. It was my first foray into the world of KTV, and it was truly hilarious. I sang with gusto, but without skill, to several popular favorites of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Today, after some frenzied packing, a little last-minute shopping and one last home-cooked meal, we took off for the hotel. I am both sad and glad to be moving on, a usual reaction to change. This afternoon at lunch, I was very touched to be told by my family that they will always consider me family, and that they will miss me very much. I will also miss them, and I plan on seeing them whenever I am in Chengdu. It was amazing the bond we formed in two months, across such an intense cultural/language barrier.

Yesterday I also went on one last family trip, to DuJiangYan, an ancient irrigation system just outside of Chengdu. And when I say ancient, it is no exaggeration--it was built in 256 BC to control flooding and move water to crop lands, and is still in use. It was another misty/rainy day, but the fresh air and scenery were lovely. It is a huge park, and we walked quite a bit and explored some memorials (called temples, but not religious in a formal way, I believe) to old rulers of the kingdom Shu, which is now Sichuan. The following photo is my brother ChenChen and I in front of one of the large temples--I love the hanging red lanterns. The next is an ancient mechanism, still in use, used to "sandbag" and protect against flooding. It is just what it looks like: rocks held together in bundles by woven bamboo.





OK, I'm off to dinner. Next time you hear from me, I'll officially have my job! Until then, zaijian!