CHANGZHOU CHINA!!!!

Five days before departure you would think that everything should be running smoothly and it's just time to kill until boarding the airplane, right? Well it has been infact..... until today when I checked my email. SURPRISE from ILP!!!

Brandy from ILP
"We have some exciting news! We’re opening a new school in Changzhou, and we need to send some volunteers to teach there. We looked at everyone’s application and talked about how things went at training, and we decided that you two are some of our best volunteers. We’d like to have you teach in this new school in order to set a good example for the school so they’ll want to continue in future semesters."

My emotions hit the floor! I couldn't believe what I was reading.....Not only was I nervous about going to Kunming to teach and bringing all the right supplies, I now had no supplies waiting for me and no previous teachers to tell me about the school in Changzhou, talk about stress!!!!

I have been doing some research though on this new city I have been assigned and I'm getting quite excited about it. Here is a little information I found.

“At sunrise the flowers on river banks were suffused with a flame-like red. In springtime, the river water turned turquoise blue.” A city whose beauty has been adored by many poets, Changzhou is becoming even more attractive today. Up to 2005, it has won many honors in the nation:
★ The earliest “city for the experiment on comprehensive reform of economic structure” and “city to open to the outside world”;
★ One of the 50 Chinese cities with biggest comprehensive power;
★ China Excellent Tourism City;
★ National Clean City;
★ National Model City in Environmental Protection;
★ Provincial Green City;
★ Nat ional Award for Human Inhabitation Environment;
★ One of the 50 Chinese cities with best investment environment;
★ National Advanced City in Development of Science and Technology;
★ National Excellent City in Public Safety;
★ National Advanced City in Social Progress.

NICKNAMED THE DRAGON CITY