I hear ya, Xiamen.

National Holiday was last week (all week!). There have been many firsts in my move to China, but this one stuck out. I actually uttered the words, "I'm not ready for a vacation."

What? Who am I?

New place+new people+new job= maybe I just wanna sit for a while

So when a group of students suggested we all go to Xiamen ("sha-men"), I politely smiled and said ok (that was, of course, after asking "what's Xiamen?").

Good call, Chase. Xiamen, as it turns out, was voted 2nd best place to live in China. It's on an island off the southern coast of China.

Beaches. Check. Seafood. Yep. Starbucks...well duh, I'm there.

I managed to put my Grande Hazelnut Latte down for a few minutes to take some pictures...

The guys:

me, Caleb, Isaac, Emmanuel

They're awesome.

We hang out a lot and have gotten to be great friends.

(and we all have the same Father :))

They had to drag me away from here.

I was in a beach coma.

"Zhong Shan Lu"- a.k.a. Shopping Street.

Every city has one. This one was pretty cool. I loved the buildings. And it was clean!

The aforementioned Grande Hazelnut Latte.

This Starbucks had 4 floors! Be jealous.

Of course, I chose the top floor with the balcony view of the harbor.

Pay attention to the piece of land across the water on the left.

This was on that piece of land- called Liugong.

The island used to house consulate estates from all over the world.

Now all that remain are these beautiful, old colonial homes.

What better place for a coffee shop?

I walked for hours around this island and kept wondering, "where in the world am I?

After several hours of contented exploration, I decided to take a picture. Too bad it was dark by then. Sorry!

Filling in the gaps (again, for the detailed people!):

Although I didn't need a vacation from a change-of-scenery standpoint, I found that it was much needed in terms of relationships. I had been friends with these guys, but the trip gave us a chance to go deeper... a key theme this semester. So many times we want to reach out, but don't take much time to dig down. So we're digging, and wisdom from above has led us here...it's exciting :)

I arrived back in Nanchang and was greeted with 5 new classes (now I have 7 total) of Freshman. I'm now teaching around 250 students! Those classes were great this week. I feel like I'm thriving here. Thank you for lifting me up!