Return to Dalian

Back in Dalian a week now, so I should write something.

I had a good trip back from Nanning, turned out that there was a student from Dalian Maritime University in the same train compartment as me. Stayed in a hostel in Beijing and did some walking around the city, as the hostel was handy for Tiananmen Square and the city centre and did the duck thing for dinner. I wanted to visit the Temple Of Heaven the next day but it was a miserable and drizzly day. I hit the foreign language bookshop instead, which was cool cos I could pick up something to read. I don’t think Dalian has much of a selection of English language books, although I have never checked. I actually bought a James Joyce book (Dubliners), so I can twitch those brain cells into action.

Dalian was pretty much still as I’d left it. Met up with some folks for a boozy enough weekend. Then on Sunday night, the storm to end all storms hit Dalian. There was a blizzard and hurricane-strength winds. I didn’t bother going out cos friends told me it was horrible out. The windows and doors were shaking and then the power went off. It allegedly affected a large part of Dalian: electricity and water supplies were off from Sunday night til early Monday morning. The next day we could see the aftermath: advertising hoardings blown away, scaffolding and debris strewn across the tram tracks, trees at strange angles. One nice result was that classes in the university were cancelled on the Monday! Here’s a pic of scaffolding hanging of a building in Dalian as a result of the storm.


This semester I am teaching all first year students. I’ve had classes with Civil Engineering and Electronics students so far, which have gone fine. Standard seems a little bit higher this year! Fingers crossed for the rest of the classes!