Blogs from Liaoning, China, Asia - page 4

My last stop on my 7 week journey brought me to Dalian, a beautiful port city in the northeast of China about an hour flight from Beijing. I had originally planned to meet my Chinese friend Junting here in her hometown, but as I mentioned in my other post, she is still stuck in the United States working out her visa issues. Despite this, Junting went above and beyond to see that I had a great stay in Dalian after I told her I still wanted to visit. She put me up with her really nice and funny parents at her gorgeous home, made sure her English speaking cousins and friends would be around so I could communicate (her parents don't speak any English) and planned for great sightseeing adventures and dining experiences that I enjoyed ... read more

The last day at DUT! We had our presentations ceremony this morning. Each class made a PowerPoint and talked about their experience. Our classes was just lots and lots of photos - a picture says a thousand words afterall. Matt, Jack and I presented with Lil doing her best to screw up the PowerPoint operation! We were then all presented with our certificates and marks from our classes. It was a really nice touch and I am very happy to have a momento to show what we have learnt! We then took loads of photos and exchanged email addresses before going to a big lunch togethe As it was Simons birthday we all said happy birthday in various languages. The teachers got him the traditional long noodle that you have to eat in one go to ... read more

Today we had chinese painting! After a dodgy attempt at drawing my partner Jack I found by talents inherited from my Dad and drew some very artistic bamboos which I thought was worthy of am art exhibit! However the teachers response in chinese was I need more practice.... We then went and played basketball with the Chinese students. We had three teams and rotated on and off with a first to give baskets game system. My team of Nick, Dave, Simon, the giant Swedish Anders dominated! Most moves consisted of me and Dave acting as playmakers and sending passes into nick or Simon who took it to the net or shot, which if missed were cleared up by Anders. However I did pull of a few sweet jump shots under pressure and a three pointer. Magic ... read more

Today was another day of classes followed by a free afternoon! We ventured down to the football pitch to have a knock around. I came down a bit later but was immediately an impact playing and with my first touch recieved a through ball on the right wing from James to send in a cross to Rob, who buried it in the net! After that I was a bit less impressive.. After an hour or so some people decided to go shopping with Daisy so we asked some Chinese guys to play, thanks to Nick being able to translate for us! However these guys were big, strong and fast so we were a little bit worried. They let us play 11 against their 10 and they went 3-0 pretty quickly, but the something clicked and Max ... read more

.....OW MY HEAD!!! Such a painful morning pulling ourselves through lessons with the thought of a nap in the afternoon helping. However everyone else had other plans...so we hit the beach grabbing a very chinese lunch of McDonalds on the way! Was an interesting experience, the beach was stoney and the water, though cool and refreshing, was not the crystal clear waters of South West England! The locals crowded around as we went in, the sight of several white girls in bikinis obviously drawing them in, that a G's screams due to the temperature.. We relaxed on the beach, but even though it was cloudy I was well covered in Factor 50 and Jess's shawl...mum taught me well! Played a spot of cricket using a tennis ball and flip-flops, the Chinese were again very intrigued by ... read more