First Full Day in Dalian

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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. I do not know the names of the dishes, but I tried to avoid anything spicy. Overall, the lunch was okay. We were able to meet a few other faculty members who stopped by to toast each of our tables.

After lunch, we met up with our tour guide to go on a city tour in Dalian. We went to an area called Xinghai Square, which is the biggest city square in China. Surrounding the square there are sculptures of Olympic sports. The end of the square near the beach was very crowded with people. Again, a lot of our group got stopped for photos in this area since there were many people. It was very beautiful and relaxing there. My only complaint is that it was very windy since it is so close to the beach.

After Xinghai Square, we drove along the seaside road. It was very mountainous and twisted back and forth along the shoreline but it was very beautiful. Our tour guide told us that there is a Walking Day where many people walk from one end of the road to the other, which can take around 10 hours. I cannot believe that people would walk that far non-stop during the day. We stopped at a few spots along the way for photos, and saw a couple taking wedding photos. I learned that it is common practice in China to take the wedding photos well in advance of the wedding so that you can have pictures displayed at the wedding. I really like this idea, and would like to do something similar when I get married.

Overall I really enjoyed the Dalian city tour and think that I will enjoy staying in Dalian.

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