In my last post I mentioned that I was going to be away from blogging for a bit as I was going on vacation.

Well after spending the past two weeks touring China, I’m back!

I went on the tour as part of a group.  Thing is, I went by myself and landed in Beijing with no idea what I would be getting myself into.

I’m a fairly sociable guy, and can get along with pretty much anyone.  But here I was half a world away; and I was going to be spending the better part of two weeks with a bunch of strangers.

I’ll admit I really wasn’t sure how it was going to go.

Our group was 41 people.  20 “pairs” – mostly couples (though there were a few people who went with friends or family), and me.

Most of the group was a bit older (largely retirees), so I naturally gravitated towards the group that was closer in age; and they became my “family from China” for most of the trip.  Though as I got to know some of the other people in the group there were a handful of other people who I would like to think became friends.

It was a really interesting microcosm of relationships though; as I had 11 days to meet people, form opinions of them and make connections with some of them.

In some ways 11 days is a short time, but when you’re around each other for approximately 12 hours a day it’s also long enough for personality conflicts to start to show and tempers to start to flare (there was one guy in particular who I would have been happy to leave behind on a number of occasions).

Still, it was a great time.

I was reminded of how much of the world I have yet to see, and how beautiful it can be.  I was reminded that first impressions can be wrong, that even with the people you get along with there will be rough moments, and that humor goes a long way towards making any experience more enjoyable.

In any case, I’m back.  I still don’t have a usable computer at home so it may take a while before blogging gets back to normal, but I’m getting there!

Drew