Blogs from Dalian, Liaoning, China, Asia - page 9

Yet again, it's been a while since I've written anything. Don't worry, loved ones, I'm not dead yet. I'm sorry to keep you from tales of my exploits, but you should take my delay to mean that I am growing more and more accustomed to everyday life here, so much so that I don't find many things significant enough to write home about. Or that I'm too busy to think about writing. Or that I'm just lazy. Take your pick. I've been getting more and more enveloped in work at the school, for better or worse. The better is that I am getting closer with my coworkers, who are actually all pretty nice people, Chinese or American. The worse is that I have less and less time to spend on exploring the intricacies of Chinese life ... read more

I've been busy lately, but as opposed to the first month of utter chaos, I have managed to develop a daily schedule. I wake up and run in the morning, which due to the increasingly chilly weather has caused me to catch a cold. I have tutoring three days a week with a soft-spoken and very studious Chinese college student majoring in English. In my spare time I hang out at the local university basketball courts. I met a kid down there who, from what I can gather, spends more time playing basketball than going to class. I've been hanging out with him more and more, and he told me once (either in confession or, more likely, in the hope that I could offer him some assistance) that his dream is to go to America and ... read more

Day 5 - the final day of the trip saw us leave the boat after breakfast with our Chong Qing guide Jeff. He took us to a few places in the city and then to the airport, It was a bit disappointing because we should have checked out a few places that we wanted to see rather than leaving it last minute to him. We were exhausted by the time we returned to Jinshitan about 7 that night. Great trip... read more

Day 4: The excursion today is the the city of Feng Du (city of the dead). Ancient Chinese belief is that when a person dies, they automatically go to hell, but there is a special way to get out of hell and into paradise. First, the body stays in the house for 7 days, in case they come alive again. At the end of 7 days, the son must light a candle under the coffin .If there is no son, too bad you stay in hell and the torture chamber. If the son lights a candle, the spirit of the perosn can travel a special road called the Huanguan Road and come before the 'judge'. There are three tasks along this road to be successful in your journey, fail them and you know what happens. You ... read more

After 25 hours of Dandong, I went to the second place of interest of this weekend trip. The bus arrived around four in the afternoon in Dalian and again, by leaving the bus, there were touts waiting to sell me a room. This saved me a lot of time looking for it myself and the final price was lower than the lowest price stated in the LP. When we took the elevator and saw the guy pressing number 28, I already knew I was going to take it. It was not as luxury as the room in Dandong, but good enough for the 28th floor! From the bus, I had spotted a Spanish tapas restaurant and after more than 2 months in China combined with the last month with only eating Chinese and Korean food (except ... read more