Home, sweet home.

So, after a twelve and a half hour plane ride from Beijing to Chicago, a missed flight from Chicago to Indianapolis (that resulted in a one-night-stay at a Chicago hotel), and a final thirty minute flight from Chicago to Indianapolis, I'm home. In AMERICA. Beautiful, sweet, amazing America.

The first thing I do is check my Facebook, because in China, Facebook (and Youtube) is banned. Then I'm running around, unpacking, and trying to stuff all of my dirty, traveling clothes into the laundry room. And now, while uploading one hundred-something pictures to Facebook, I'm writing this blog post.

I've been to China about four times by now, and this time was probably the best. China's huge, beautiful, crowded, noisy, busy, and fast-paced. If you're a lazy traveler like myself, you just want to stay in the hotel and not do anything--especially if you're in a place like Beijing. If you're not, then you will like China a lot--there's so many places to go, things to buy, areas to see, and history to learn. China's history is long and interesting, and in my opinion, a lot more interesting than American history.

Anyway! The reason this China trip was the best was because I went to a little town called Dengfeng in the Henan province, which is the home to the Shao Lin Temple--home of the monks of China--and the Song Shan Shao Lin Wushu Vocational Insititute--a school that trains students on Chinese martial arts. And holy crap, these students are absolutely amazing. The school has over 30,000 students with levels from Kindergarten to University. They practice almost every day of the year starting at six in the morning and ending as late as midnight. Ninjas, I tell you. Those students are ninjas.

But although Song Shan was phenomenal, it's still great to be back home. And tomorrow marks day one of pre-band camp! :P

I hope everyone had a great July!

- E

Edit: I almost forgot--I turned fifteen in China, so...now I get to change the introduction-side-bar-thing to fifteen! Ha, yes :)