Class Trip to YangShuo

This was the best class trip in High School. We traveled to Yangshuo, China, and experienced many new activities I have never done before. One of the most challenging activity was rock climbing. I went on the steepest (hardest) route, and it was a real-life rock climbing experience. I had to find places to hold and step on, and there were times where I just ran out of stamina and free fall. When I was rock climbing I thought about life in general. I have to be responsible for the consequence of choosing the wrong rock to hold onto, I have to make the choice all by myself and nobody could do it for me. However, when I felt like giving up my classmates were cheering for me, we were cheering for each other. When I finally got to the top of the journey, I felt like all the tiredness disappeared, but it came back again once I reached the ground.

Another activity that was very interesting was the scavenger hunt in nature. We were teamed up into 3s and 4s and had the following materials: a map, a compass, and each other. It was a very damp day so we were stepping into muddy places and walking into flies and mosquitoes. We walked into local villages, into semi-forest places, and into farms. The entire process was a lot of fun and our team came in second place. However, I believe we were disqualified because we went over time by around 45min... This activity helped me with collaboration because even though I was with people I am familiar with, there are times when we have disagreements. I remember one time I had a very strong opinion about one of the directions and the others said:“ all right Iris, we will believe you this time, you better be right". I felt the responsibility and I am pretty competitive so it would be bad if I led them toward the wrong direction. Thankfully, I was right.

In addition, during that night we had a campfire and everyone sat around it. We were asked to appreciate one person that helped us during the day. At that time I felt the joy of appreciating others and also being appreciated. It felt like:" wow, life is wonderful". It sounds pretty cliche but when those moments hit there isn't another way to describe it.

During the trip we also biked for three hours, walked inside caves for around 2 hours. All of those, I enjoyed.

Most importantly I had my birthday on the class trip for the second year. The teachers and my classmates surprised me with a birthday cake and my friends surprised me with an amazing gift. All in all, it was a great experience with challenges, achievements, collaborating, and bonding with one another. The class trip emphasized on how important all of my class mates mean to me and it was amazing spending a week with them.