Day 1 - meeting the team

I finally met the team this morning at breakfast, well all except Ivonne who was delayed until this evening.  Our NGO team was also there Karen, Elaine and Brandon.  They are from Pyxera Global and have coordinated all of our logistics along with Congming who arranged all of the travel ad visas.  I can tell you that having a logistics team is AWESOME!!!!

As I expected everyone was very enthusiastic and it was so nice to finally meet everyone.  Today w.as orientation and then a quick neighborhood tour.  Food has been VERY good.  Breakfast is included with the room, but we went to a Ramen house for lunch and a dumpling place for dinner.  Qingdao is famous for its dumplings.  We had the Qingdao favorite fish dumpling, some squid ink dumplings as well as some pork and vegetarian dumplings. It was all wonderful. 

I also had my first TsingDao beer.  You can buy it off a keg in the street and if you do not happen to have a cup, no worries, they will put it in a plastic bag. So you will see people with plastic bags full of beer.

This evening after dinner we walked down along the waterfront.  All of the buildings are lit up and vibrant.  So colorful.  We walked down to the Olympic torch and stretched our legs.  It was a tough day trying to stay awake with a 13 hour difference.