Henan, here we come!

Well our wakeup call came early today (5:30am) and wakeup calls are nonnegotiable, I guess it is the Chinese way that they are set up for us whether we like it or not!   After breakfast 60 delegates headed to the airport for a 90 minute flight to Henan province.  We arrived at Zhengzhou airport and arrived at the Sky Land GDH hotel around noon. We had the best meal yet at the hotel, and then headed to Zhengzhou No. 47 high school where we were welcomed by students as well as other area principals from schools throughout Zhengzhou. 

The high school was a boarding school and was sleek and modern.  There were fountains around the school and beautiful landscaping, it was hard to believe it was a high school campus and not a college.

We were at the high school for a few hours for a Sino-US Education Exchange Forum, where we learned about the Chinese education system and our Collegeboard liaison Lisa Healy presented information on the American education system.  We broke into forums where we learned more about the individual high schools and formed relationships with area schools so we can continue to correspond in the future, Skype, and possibly even exchange students and have guest teachers.  

Then we traveled to a local restaurant for a welcome banquet with the delegates attending the forum.  After a long day (which is every day on our itinerary) we headed to bed to prepare for a day full of Kongfu and the Shaolin temple tomorrow.

Spider-Man in Zhengzhou

Night view in Zhengzhou