An awkward introduction

My name is Eilidh McConnell, I'm 17 years old. Straight out of high school and thrown halfway across the world with a bunch of strangers.

Despite the sound of it, the experience has been anything but impossible. My fellow scholars made it clear that we are all in this together and there is nothing to be afraid of. Once we got past the initial episodes of overly dramatic crying, we all settled in within a matter of days. It is now our 8th day in China and the past week has been rather eventful shall we say.

After the stress of a 14 hour flight with little to no sleep, arriving in China for the first time quickly became one of the most stressful experiences of my life. Long story short, it took us the same amount of time to get from Beijing to Tianjin, as it did from Edinburgh to Doha.  Sounds stressful right? Soon enough we forgot the pain of the 7 hour delay and were  fully distracted by the beauty of the unfamiliar surroundings. 

Going into this experience, we were made to believe that it was necessary for us to cram our cases full to the brim and push the baggage limits to the max. We found the truth was the complete opposite. China has turned out to be the most consumer orientated country I have ever visited. Everything is readily available in every7/11 store on every corner of every street. With pot noodles at the equivalent of 40p, its not hard to survive as a student here. It's almost a haven for the lazy.

Anyways, this blog is a convenient way to keep a record of this once in a lifetime opportunity, to reassure my parents that I'm not living off of 40p noodles and to maybe help future scholars with their nerves and worries.