Today began our field course in Eastern China. Some of us departed from Canada at 1:00 pm from Pearson Airport in Toronto, Canada. Others had already made their way to China. They and participants from Chinese university partners (Fudan, Beijing Normal, Southwest) made their way to the Pudong international airport – assembling outside of there Starbucks outside of airport arrivals. Once assembled we made the way to our bus, and traveled for about 2 hours to the Tongji-Jiaxing Yangtze Environmental Specimen Bank in the ‘small’ city of Jiaxing in Zhejiang province. Half of us are staying in a nearby hotel, while the rest stayed in dorm rooms at the facility. After a quick dinner, and introduction to the course we all fell into our beds to rest for the upcoming activities.

我们今天在华东开启了野外实习课。我们其中有些人是下午一点钟从加拿大多伦多皮尔森国际机场出发的。他们和来自中国合作的大学（复旦，北师大和西南）同学在浦东国际机场到达口的星巴克咖啡厅前集合。集合完毕后大家乘大客车用了2小时来到了位于浙江省的“小”城嘉兴入住了同济大学长江环境样品库。其中一部分同学入住到了附近的网球酒店，其他人入住到了样品库的宿舍。简单的晚餐后我们进行了简洁的课程介绍，大家很快就进入了梦乡准备迎接接下来的课程活动。

On the bus to the Yangtze Environmental Specimen Bank.