Blogs from Dalian, Dongbei, China, Asia

Today was our second day of class. We only had one class today, which was Chinese Business. The class was very insightful. There are several aspects to Chinese business that I didn’t really think about before, but I don’t have time to go into much detail at the moment. The class was pretty interesting, many students had questions throughout the lecture. After class we took a trip to visit the Dalian Software Park. It had many companies on premises, including several big name companies. I was surprised just how many different companies were housed within the Dalian Software Park. I only expected the park to be 2-3 buildings, but it was way more than that. The buildings spanned quite a bit of land as well. The park really took me by surprise, and I would like ... read more

Today was our first full day in Dalian. We met with a faculty member from DUFE that would be assisting us during our stay. She took us to an area to meet up with 2 students from English Club to tour us around campus. The campus was a lot larger than I expected, but some of the buildings were older than I expected them to be. Overall though, the campus was very beautiful. The campus even had a garden area with a pond and small waterfall. There were many trees throughout campus, for some reason I did not expect there to be many trees there. After the campus tour, we went to the International Canteen for a welcome lunch. We were given many different dishes to try, but some were not as good as the others. ... read more

I realize this is a late posting... my apologies.. A group of teachers at my school have been practicing volleyball 2 days a week since the beginning of school in preparation for a tournament in Beijing. This past weekend was that tournament (November 19th and 20th). The weekend had many high points and a few very low points. On Friday night we all went for dinner at a Spanish restaurant called Tapas in downtown Dalian. The food there is delicious and the atmosphere is great! We even had a cello player playing in the background! This was a ‘high’ point. Our time at the Dalian airport was a low point. The Dongbei (east north) winds were acting up which prevented the plane we were supposed to take to Beijing from landing in Dalian. Instead, it turned ... read more

I spent a Sunday afternoon with a new friend of mine exploring the surrounding areas near our apartment complexes. We started the chilly autumn day going up UFO hill. UFO hill is a park very close to my apartment complex. It is almost exactly as it sounds: a big hill with a UFO on top of it! The locals call it a mountain, which is a bit overkill in my opinion. The park is actually quite large and full of tons of green space. There are trails intertwining throughout the area which look very fun to spend some time on. However, the focus of our day was to make it to the UFO! On our way to the UFO we were treated to some great views of the city, the ocean and another hill ... read more

Today is my last full day in Dalian. Tomorrow I will fly back to Shanghai in the evening. I have had a good time here with Shengjie’s family. Communication was a little difficult at times but I understood how to communicate the essentials such as sleep, eat and bathroom. The family was very welcoming and made sure to keep me full. I have not been hungry since I arrived. On the second of February we stayed up until 1:00am to bring in the lunar calendar New Year. There were fireworks going off all over the city for this is the biggest legal holiday celebrated in China. On Friday we went to see Dalian’s fireworks show which was very impressive. The Chinese know how to organize a show. Shengjie’s mom and I took a photo with a ... read more