Today, we started off the day with an amazing breakfast at our 5-star hotel. After a one-hour bus ride, we arrived at the Yikang Nursing Home. We learned that they have three buildings in total. The one we were going to visit had 23 floors. All the rooms there are designed to meet the 5-star hotel standard. They also have a bell in every room to call their staff at any time. So all the people there enjoy great living conditions. On the eighth floor, we met a friendly lady who offered to teach us brush calligraphy. We tried writing our Chinese names using the brush and she said what we wrote was excellent. After that, we enjoyed our lunch at their cafeteria and talked to the people who live there.
After lunch, we went to the retirement home’s lobby to watch the seniors perform music. They performed a great deal of songs, including (but not limited to) a piece of a Chinese opera and the song “You Raise Me Up” in English. However, the seniors weren’t the only ones performing that afternoon. Between their multiple performances, we as a class also sang a couple songs, “朋友”, “对不起我的中文不好”, and “Youth” by TFBoys. The singing went well.
After we finished the performances, we went to a hospital that was connected to the retirement home. After looking for a bit, we walked back to the main building where we met up and all signed the MFS banner with our Chinese names. After writing the banner, we were all given free time to do whatever we wanted for an hour, including shopping. This was because there was a shopping mall right across the street from the retirement home. After driving for an hour from the retirement home and shopping center, we went straight to dinner. The dinner the night before our departure back to America was quite good. It was similar to other meals we’d had, but with a couple unique details, such as fried octopus and rice cakes. After dinner, we went back to the hotel early to pack, and we were given time to walk around the hotel for a couple hours. We then went to bed to rest up for the long flight home!
— David and Marcus