My Weekend

I haven’t written anything for a while. What have I been doing…let me think. Besides eating Chinese food, I took a trip to Xinghai Park on Friday evening. Lots of people there, doing lots of different activities. There were some punters singing Karaoke (badly), so I didn’t hang around too long! What was most interesting were the groups of people dancing. So, I saw three different types. There were some younger (under 40) people doing more modern dancing, like to night-club sort of music. They would call it disco dancing here but it ain’t disco in the John Travolta sense! More like the thump, thump, thump sort of music in night clubs. Anyway, it was more like an aerobics class with maybe 50 people following the dance steps, led by a few leaders! Besides that, there were older couples doing waltzing and other older-people dances. They were having a great time, as you can see in the picture below!! In another place, there were women doing some sort of Chinese dance with fans. Very graceful.


I think that whole people-getting-together-in-parks-and-doing-stuff thing is great! And what’s more, it’s free! Also, it’s great exercise. I wish people would do more things like that in Ireland instead of sitting in front of the TV!

I met some postgraduate students on Saturday who were looking for someone to help them improve oral English, since they would be involved in an International conference next year. They were all science postgrads. So, I went to their physics lab. Brought back a few memories or days gone by. Some of them were working on using plasmas to remove pollutants from exhaust gases. Fair play to them! So, maybe I can help them out.

Sunday, I went shopping for clothes, since I only brought summer clothes and now winter is drawing near! All I have to say is, where has Communist China gone? Downtown Dalian has nothing but shops, shops, shops! There’s no shortage of things to buy. Although it’s hard enough finding men’s clothes at a decent price unless you want to buy bad quality stuff! So, I go some stuff in the end. I’m glad I survived that, since shopping is not my most favourite of things!

I also bought a feather football thing (毽球). I don’t know if there is a proper English name for it. I guess it works like a shuttlecock in badminton. It has a weight on the bottom and feathers sticking out of it. You can play keepy-uppy (i.e. kick the thing in the air to each other without letting it touch the ground) with it with a bunch of friends. Should be fun. See the pic below.


I often see students playing this game arounnd the campus. I tried it in the apartment and it's quite hard to control the thing!! Practise makes perfect!