Day 13 Friends of Nature Part 1自然之友

Today was our first day back in Beijing from our time in Xi'an. We had breakfast at our hotel and took the subway to the Friends of Nature office, where we listened to a presentation about the Green Map system. The Green Map system is a global initiative that aims to map out the environmental features of a particular place in order to encourage the community and its visitors to pursue a "green" or sustainable lifestyle. After the presentation, we split into groups and were assigned our group tasks as well as our individual ones. We then took a bit of time to familiarize ourselves with the assignment and the Friends of Nature volunteers who were assigned to our small groups.
After leaving the Friends of Nature office, we stopped by a small shop nearby to have lunch. My friend and I split a dish of the curry beef and shredded pork, which were both very delicious. We made our way to Minzu University after lunch to have a short Chinese class about popular dishes from different regions of China. Grace then took us to a convenient store for snacks during our break and we stopped by the campus laundromat on our way back. After the break, we had a cross-cultural activity where we had to pinpoint the top 5 values and bottom 5 values from either our own lives or our society as a whole. We realized that we share many values with our Chinese buddies and that there are splits between values within our group, even through we come from one place.
After the cross cultural activity, we were given free time. My friends and I visited a nearby mall and had KFC for dinner. It was a great start to our time back in Beijing!