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Arriving at the Camps

I remember traveling to China was a long, tiring trip. I think it took 14 hours just to fly there and back. I watched a few movies, but the flight was just very boring. It didn't help that I forgot to bring my own sketchbook and earphones. Air Canada did offer earphones, but the quality is not great. At least my sister (who worked at Air Canada at the time) was able to arrange the flight so that I can receive food catered to my diet.
When we arrived in China, I think saying "I was nervous" puts it a little lightly. This was the first time I went anywhere without my family and it made me feel very anxious, although my friends were there for me. When we got the airport, it was very eerie! The section we went through had a huge lineup to scan you and it was super quiet. Anyway, after that, one of the camp counsellors came to greet us and he took us to the camp site, in which we were lead to a large room (image above). They did a presentation to greet us and told us what this camp was about. Think of this international camp as Expo '67, kind of.

When we finally arrived at the camp site, the counsellors lead us to our dorm rooms. We were situated at a high school and it was big. I often got lost walking around the first couple of days. I shared a room with two of my other classmates. A couple of things thing I really didn't like about the dorms were the bathroom and toilet room. I don't have any pictures, but to describe it to the best of my abilities, the toilet was basically a whole on the floor (the room stunk really bad too. We went to China's version of Wallmart just to get a canister to cover up the smell). The bathroom was just a sink and a shower that took up the whole bathroom. It was a strange design. Honestly though, these are very minor complaints compared to my overall experience.
After setting up our rooms, I think they took as down to another hall where the students introduced themselves to us and did a mini -alent show. It's hard to recall what they all did, but I remember a couple of people playing instruments. I have two images shown below.