About
Elena Caputo is a high school foreign exchange student traveling in Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China. She has been learning Mandarin for nearly five years now and is excited to be completely immersed in the language and culture of China. She hopes you’ll read and enjoy her blog!
“The gladdest moment in human life is a departure into unknown lands.”
– Sir Richard Burton.
Latest Post
January 16-20: My First Week
I’ve got to be entirely honest. When I first met my host student and her father at the train station in Shijiazhuang, I had very low expectations for how this was going to go. The first thing Shuaiyi (my host student) said to me was that she didn’t know much English, and her father indirectly reiterated the same sentiments by speaking exclusively in Chinese for the entire 40 minute car ride home.
The next day was also not helpful either. We started by going out to breakfast at KFC. Yes, Kentucky Fried Chicken. Now, you may not expect that KFC would have suitable breakfast options, and you would be right. The Chinese KFC also does not have suitable breakfast options. Or at least not for Americans. The menu was in Chinese and besides the information about the price, understanding said menu required a higher level of Chinese than I was prepared for. I had no idea what I was ordering, but somehow I’d stumbled upon what can best be described as shrimp porridge…
Countdown
days
hours minutes seconds
until
I Come Home
Contact & Subscribe
Subscribe
Comments
Your blog is so beautiful! Love it! Had fun traveling with you, wish we could stay longer though 😦
Elena's Travel Blog 
谢谢你！I loved traveling with you, too!