China Visit - Travelling and Arriving

On Thursday morning March 29th at 9am 20 Transition year students and three teachers began their trip of a lifetime from The Boker to Beijing. Our flight to Beijing left T2 Dublin at 2pm and headed for Dubai, where we landed at midnight local time. We had a four hour stop over to have a wander about and gaze at the downtown skyline all lit up in the night sky.
We then boarded the largest aircraft in the world , the A380, and headed further east to Beijing arriving at 3.15pm local time. Our hosts Tony and Jane greeted us with flowers and a very warm welcome as we boarded our bus which was going to be our transport capsule for the next week. First impressions were of a huge airport, standing in the 'foreigners' line at immigration, the volume of people and the vastness of the city as we trickled through the afternoon traffic.
First stop was The Hanban Headquarters where we were officially welcomed and presented with T-shirts. On wards to our accommodation which was at Huiwen International Middle School. We arrived and were given Floor 6 to ourselves, our own place, the tricolour was hung from the window to let everyone know we were in town.
After establishing our nests we were taken for our first visit to an authentic Chinese Restaurant. We were not disappointed as the food was simply scrumptious. We ate from a wide variety of dishes and chop stick skills were excellent and continued to flourish through the week as everyone used them all trip.
Back to base camp for rest as we were well and thoroughly wiped out after the long haul, but all excited about waking in the morning to begin to explore our new surroundings,

 On board Emirates A380 

 Passing The Birds Nest

 Arrival in Beijing

 Classic Beijing Food

The face of money in China.