Irish Again

So, this week I got back to my Irish roots in more than one way! I gave my presentation n Irish culture on Thursday. Yeah, it went grand. No problems except the video of Riverdance that I downloaded didn’t play (maybe that’s a good thing, haha). I think the students got most of it. Anyone I talked to afterwards understood what I was saying anyway! I gave them a few bars of The Fields of Athenry and at the end I did a bit of Dirty Old Town and Raglan Road! I enjoyed doing it and re-learned a lot about Irish history!

The second bit of Irishness was that I went out on the tear last night with some Irish fellas! I hadn’t been in a boozer in ages, so it was a good night. I had intended to go home early, since I had to meet my postgrad students this morning to practise English. Well, ended up hitting 2 bars and a nightclub and not getting home til half 3 in the morning! Only thing missing was a dirty big greasy snack box from Supermacs. Can someone post one over to me?

So, this morning, I was cabbaged ad had to meet those students. I told them I was sick. Don’t think many of them have had hangovers before, so I think they swallowed it! But it was tough going with a pounding head talking to them! Had my Chinese lesson as well this afternoon, which was a bit of a wash-out since I was knackered!

So, I’ll have to meet up with the Irish boys more often but not drink as much!!

'ello again!

Haven’t written anything for a week. Well, nothing earth-shattering has happened! 3 8 o’clock classes on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday means going to bed around 11pm! Great craic.

I have decided to part company with my Chinese school (where I learn Chinese). It was costing 30% of my weekly salary to be taught by a lack-lustre teacher. So, I have got some students to teach me instead. They are majoring in Chinese language and want to teach Chinese to foreigners when they graduate. They are first year students and have never taught before, but after having a class with them on Sunday, I reckon they should be fine. They know all the grammar and can explain stuff well! I even bought a whiteboard for the flat, so it’s like a little classroom now.

I gotta give a talk in the Uni’s series of “Cultural Lectures”. All the foreign teachers need to give a talk for an hour or so. At first, I was indifferent, well not really. I just didn’t want to do it. But, since I started it, I have become interested in doing a good job on it. I’ve been reading Irish history, most of which I’d forgotten. Interesting stuff. I reckon I’m getting more patriotic and I’m thinking that after this talk, the students won’t have too good opinion of the Brits!

Apart from history, I wanna show them some trad music and a bit about Irish sports (both the indoor pint-lifting and outdoor GAA kind)! I reckon it should be interesting for them, since none of them know anything about Ireland. I am gonna give them a few bars of “The Fields of Athenry” as well!

Party On...

Last weekend was more akin to one I’d have in Ireland! Drinkin' and having fun!

It was Tom’s student helper’s birthday, so we decided to have a party in my house and invite some Chinese people and some foreign teachers. Saturday started off with myself and Tom heading in for or fry in All’s Well café. Not bad but not that filling! Did a bit of shopping for munchies and beer and so on. Hit all the traditional places like Carrefour and Wal-Mart!

So, we started the proceedings around 7. The students have to be in their dorms by 10:30, hence the early start. Started of tame enough until the Aussie contingent arrived. I was ordered to put on the Pogues. Ken, the Aussie was in full voice belting out the lyrics. We got some of the Chinese out for a bit of a hooley (i.e. very technical form of Irish dance where we go mad and swing each other round the dancefloor)! The Dubliners followed. They were mad for the Irish music. We were explaining the words of such greats as Sever Drunken Nights! Since I have to give a cultural talk next week, I reckon I’ll put a good bit in about Irish music, since it seemed so popular!

We changed the music and got the Chinese out dancing to everything from The Stones to Bob Marley! I reckoned they had a great time. This was a bit different from the quiet parties they are used to! We’ll have to do it again some time! After all the students went home, the teachers remained to polish off the remainder of the beer! As a result, I woke up with a bit of a hangover the next day. My worst one so far in China. Sunday wasn’t a waste. Checked out the local supermarket near that Western restaurant (as pizza there for lunch!). Supermarket was pretty good and they had freak milk, as opposed to the UHT crap! Finally, I could make a decent cup of Barry’s tea! Haven’t had one sine I left the motherland!

All in all, a good weekend although I was a bit tired for my 8am class today. So were the students, so we took it easy!

Steaks and Debates

On Thursday, I was feeling like eating Western food. Was getting bored with the stuff on offer here. Handy enough, there was a Western restaurant 2 stops away on the tram! It was pretty good! I had a chicken and chips starter and steak for main course. No veg with the steak but it wasn’t bad. I haven’t had steak since the start of August! Including drinks and ice-cream, the total bill came to around €9 for the two of us. Not too bad although way more expensive than Chinese food around the area! We’ll be going back!

Today, I had a good class with the second years. Thursday’s class with another second year class was a bit hit or miss, so I thought I’d better add something else. I thought of doing something about China sending people into space, as China had launched 2 people into space this week. They were really into it and we had debates about the subject. I was taken aback how well they did. I couldn’t stop them talking. So, hopefully I have this class on my side now! Some of the classes are hard enough to win over! I will have to try debates with other classes. I reckon I need to pick topics they are interested in, like the Beijing Olympics.

Dandong II

Dandong is built along the Yalu River. On the other side of the river is the town Sinuiju in North Korea. The original bridge spanning the near 1km stretch across the river was built in October 1911 by the colonial Japanese. However, this bridge was bombed by the Americans in 1950, so now only the part nearest China remains, and is used as a sight-seeing vantage point. They now call this one the Broken Bridge.


Meanwhile, in May 1943, another bridge spanning the Yalu River was completed, which was called the Yalu River Bridge. It was renamed the “Bridge for the Friendship between China and Korea” in October 1990. Here it is in its loveliness:


Anyway, to dispense with the tour-guidery, the Chinese side of the river was pretty sweet, with a nicely laid-out, well-kept park and promenade with families and wedding couples enjoying the sunshine. Looking across the river to North Korea was a different story. Not much life there at all. We decided to take a boat tour, which brought you to within a few metres of the border. A closer look at the place revealed a few soldiers and people on bikes, but not much life. There was a run-down park and I even saw some sort of fun-fair with a big wheel in the background. They also had a tour boat docked alongside the river!


Maybe this stuff was for show for the Chinese, since I didn’t see much sign of life. The boats along the riverside looked pretty worn-out and un-seaworthy! It was intriguing to get a glimpse at a country closed to the rest of the world. I saw a documentary about North Korea on the BBC once, with thoroughly depressed me! These things make you realise how lucky you are! Glad I live in China!!


Took a stroll in the park at the other end of town in the evening time. Not much to see really. I sort of got a cold, so got some medicine and headed to bed early. I always enjoy chatting to the people in the shops. I guess foreigners are a novelty to them. I find most of them very friendly and funny!

The next day, we rose early (a lot of getting up early in China) to go to the Great wall at Tiger Mountain. That’s around a 50 minute bus journey from Dandong. For those interested, I hear that this is the eastern starting point of the wall, and was rebuilt during the Ming dynasty. A student told me that it is newer than the Great Wall at Beijing. Either way, there were less people there and the scenery was nearly as nice. Here's a pic of the Great Wall. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a better one with more of the Wall and the mountain, since the sun would have been shining directly into the camera lens and the pic wouldn't have come out.


However, when you climb to the top of Tiger Mountain, you get an amazing vista of the Yalu River and of North Korea (see pic below)! It was well worth the climb. Thank God we did it in the morning and not in the hot afternoon!


Our ticket said there was something like a “One Step in Each Country” thing, where you could stand with 1 foot in China and 1 foot in North Korea. I found this intriguing, so I paid the 5 yuan for the boat trip. Little did I know that they had duped us and that after some sort of trouble with Chinese tourists in the recent past, nobody was allowed across. The border consisted of a narrow stream and there were some stepping stones. Allegedly, you could step onto North Korean soil and walk around. The stepping stones have been removed and you’re not even supposed to take pictures. There are some soldiers there to stop ya! Well, they’re just having a chat wit each other and couldn’t fie a crap! They just told people to stop taking pictures form time to time!


No much else to say about Dandong. We returned to the city and wandered around. Stopped in the square with the huge Mao Zedong statue and tried to avoid the various beggars around the place. We were lucky in or travels, since the weather was just changing for the worse as we were travelling back to Dalian! It was good to get away and see something different for a few days.

Boys in Green Feeling Blue

The inevitable happened and Ireland drew with Switzerland and failed to quality for the World Cup. What's more embarrassing is that we came in fourth behind Israel! I tells ya, the Irish team couldn't score in a brothel with a fist full of fivers! That has always been our problem. Scoring goals! And dropping points against lesser opposition!Well, ourselves and the Chinese can watch other teams, since both our teams failed to qualify! I can't see them renewing Kerr's contract now, since we haven’t qualified for anything under him!

Have a Butcher's at This

I know I haven’t been writing much for my blog lately. My workload increased 2 weeks ago, so I have more classes to prepare. When starting teaching, it takes longer to prepare classes. When you get into it and start to build up a repertoire, the time it takes does get shorter! Life is quiet enough here at the moment and I have sort of settled into a routine.

I walked into my classroom this morning to see “Becks and Posh = nosh” and “Adam and Eve = believe” written on the board. I’m sure you’ve all twigged that it’s Cockney Rhyming Slang. Now, why it was funny is because I knew who did it. It was the Aussie teacher, Ken! We had a conversation about that the day before, trying to confuse a student and he did try and explain “Becks and Posh” to her, to no avail! Well, I tried to explain it to my students as well, resulting in very blank and confused faces!!

All the teachers have to do some sort of cultural lecture type thing. I think I’m on next week. I don’t really want to do it but if it keeps the big boys happy, then maybe it’s worth doing. I can’t see it being very interesting, since I am not very interested in doing it! They want us to speak for an hour, which is a long time, especially, since the people who will be listening will be students and it will be difficult for them to take everything in as it’s in English! Also, I’d probably bore them to tears!! Sure, let’s see what happens! I was told that someone was to ring me about it but I haven’t heard from him! He did ring me when I was in shanghai but it was half eight on a Sunday morning and I was in bed at the time, so I don’t really remember what he said! So, anyone who didn’t understand the title of this post can now know that in Cockney rhyming slang, “butcher’s hook” is look! It’s often shortened to just “butcher’s”

On another note, Ireland are playing the Swiss in the final World Cup qualifier tonight. I don’t think this one is on TV. CCTV5 is showing a Germany Vs China friendly and the one that showed the Ireland-France game last time is showing England, who have already qualified. I blame Beckham-itis for the interest in England! So, good luck to the boys in Green. Lets pray that France lose or draw and that we win (probably both unlikely, but we’re usually very fluky!!

Dandong

Up at 7 to the sound of snoring. It was actually the pig grunting in the yard. No time for brekkie, as we had planned to head o Dandong. We needed to get to Zhuanghe and then find a bus to Dandong. Had an interesting time in a car to Zhuanghe. The Irish lad and his girlfriend were gonna get a bus but decided to get a “taxi” instead, which was a local woman in a shiny new-ish big white car. She was clearly gonna rip them off, charging 80 yuan. She then said she’s charge them 50 and us 30 if we went too. We just decided to go, since it would be quicker than waiting for a bus! I was surprised at her driving, just the same as the men in China. Pretty much, overtake now and then beep the horn as you are passing in the hope that traffic will notice!!

We got to ZhuangHe but no buses to Dandong. We went outside and some punter on a motorcycle taxi said he’d take us to the second bus station! That was my first experience on a motorbike taxi. I think he went a bit slow, since my friend was a bit anxious.

To digress, there are these motorbike taxis in Dalian, around the uni. They’re pretty big bikes, dunno what make they are. They will take you where you wanna go for cheap. The cool thing is the lights. They are all decorated in what you could only say were Christmas lights! You can’t miss ‘em! I must get a photo!

Anyways, to get back to the plot, we got a bus to Dandong. The 2 interesting things at Dandong are the fact that it’s on the North Korea border and also that there is part of the Great Wall there! Other than that, there’s nothing much else to say about the place: smaller than Dalian and also less crowded! It’s relatively clean as well!

Continuing our cheap and cheerful accommodation theme, we happened to find a place beside the bus station: above a shop! The room stank of old cigarettes but it was a steal at 15 yuan each!

Onwards, we went in search of the river.

to be continued…………

BingYuGou

Since, it was National Day Vacation Week, it would have been a shame not to go somewhere. Myself and a friend of mine here decided to head off for a couple of days. I really hadn’t a clue where to go, so it was decided to go to a place called BingYuGou (冰峪沟), which can be translated directly as “Ice Valley Channel”. It’s a sort of rocky, gorgy, rivery place! Yes, you can see that my English has really come on, since coming to China!

Got a nice early (7:40am) bus from Dalian to ZhuangHe (庄河), which was about 2 hours away. We then got a minibus to BingYuGou. We didn’t really have any plan for accommodation or what we would do there. We were under the impression that there was a lot to see there! So, we arrived near the place anyway in the lovely warm sunshine. It has been cold in Dalian recently, so the heat was very welcome! The area around there was rich in farmland with lots of corn fields and other assorted crops. So, we decided to stay on one of the farms. As usual in China, there were plenty of people waiting outside where the bus stopped to get us to stay in their places. So, we went with this woman and saw what she had to offer. Well, you get what you pay for and we paid 15 yuan for a room. There was an outside toilet, which was a hole in the ground with a wall around it. There was a shower as well in an outhouse but we passed on that! The people there were very friendly and were glad of our business. We decided to head off after the rush of the weekend, so it wasn’t hard to find a place to stay.


I digress. So, of we went with full bellies to see what BingYuGou had to offer. We paid our ticket and got on a boat and travelled down the river gorge. The scenery was very impressive with rocky gorges on each side but also green grassy and forested bits. I like gong to places like this cos we don’t have this kind of scenery in Ireland.


We disembarked and decided to have a wander around. There were hills to be climbed so off we went. It was good to do a bit of exercise. I think we were in better shape than most of the other tourists, who were sweating and panting! There were some lovely views from the top of the hills.


Down below, in usual Chinese fashion, music was pumping out of everywhere. So much for the tranquillity of the countryside! We headed down and around to the main lake, where we took another nice lake cruise. More wonderful scenery. Some people call this the “Poor Man’s Yunnan” but I reckon it was as good as most things I saw in Yunnan!

We headed for Little Guilin (小桂林), which turned out to be a kids’ amusement place. Well, we amused ourselves on the swing-bridge and watched people crossing the river in the roly-poly thingy


The weather that day was lovely and warm but turned quite nippy in the evening, as the landlady had said. We headed back to the farm for a nice dinner and a beer. There were 2 westerners there. The landlord said the girl was American and the guy was from New Zealand. However, when I heard them talking, I heard a familiar Paddy accent! I went in to talk to them, and he was from Limerick and was teaching in Future School in Dalian! The American girl was teaching there as well. You meet Irish people everywhere!

So, the next day we decided to rise early so we could go to Dandong. To be continued…

National Day Holiday

It is National Day Festival this week. Most people in China will get 5 days off starting from the 1st of October. At this time, lots of people travel to different places in China. So, yet again, we get everyone doing something at one time, which seems to epitomise Chinese tourism. This is like the boat trip in Dali, where they had three boats leave port at same time, visit the island at the same time and have lunch at the same time, resulting in massive overcrowding. They could have staggered the start times!

Anyway, next week (Monday or Tuesday), I hope to head somewhere nearby. Hopefully I can make some arrangements tonight. It will be a bit overcrowded and overpriced but I don’t want to miss out on the opportunity of travelling in China. I was thinking that there is no point in saving money here, since I could earn a month’s Chinese pay in a few days at home! So, I reckon I should live the good life over here!

So, yesterday and today I haven’t done a huge amount. Went for a lovely hotpot on Friday. It’s where you have your own gas-powered pot boiling away at your table and you put in different meat and vegetables. On Saturday evening, I went to a Korean BBQ. Similar affair except they BBQ the stuff at your table for you!!

I had my first taste of a Chinese disco-bar last night as well! Myself and Song Dan decided to go for a beer, so he took me to the disco bar place across the road. It was a bit weird, cos we arrived at around 8:30pm and the place was in full swing! People dancing, music banging. Well, the music was sort of thump, thump, thump sot of euro-dance, except in Chinese. Well, we had a laugh and a few beers anyway. The strange thing, however, was that since most of the people there were students, they had to be back in their dorms before 10:30! So, by 10:30, the place had emptied!! So, it was a bit surreal! People at home don’t generally hit the dance floor before midnight!

Today, I was hanging around with the 2 American teachers and their friends, who came to visit from XI’an. Quite an international bunch, with American, Irish, English, Spanish and Filipino! Went to their house for some food and then we headed into Xinghai Square, which is a massive open square beside the sea. It's supposed to be the biggest square in China or Asia or something. It's just a huge expanse with buildings on 3 sides and the sea on the other side. So big that you wouldn't think it's a square (well it is oval-shaped actuallly!) They also had a sort of dodgy looking fun-fair beside the square but we didn’t partake! I dunno about the safety factor!!

Saw a new game. Kids playing with spinning tops. However, instead of spinning them normally, they hit them with a whip to make them spin! I wouldn't wantto get on the wrong side of one of those kids while they were playing that game!! Here's a pic:

Busy Week

I noticed I haven’t posted anything in a while. I was actually very busy this week with all my new classes. Had to prepare more classes (which am very slow at) and teach the new first years! There’s more work than the second years! I didn’t bother going to English corner either, cos I was busy!

The weather is getting cooler now in Dalian and the wind is picking up. Autumn is upon us and winter is approaching. Not looking forward to the minus temperatures!!

One funny thing I have noticed is that there are a lot of old people rummaging through rubbish bins outside. There are a few big steel drums outside the apartment building where we can dump our rubbish. I was told that people can get money for old glass and plastic bottles. They can get 2 mao (two tenths of a yuan - around 2 euro cent) for a bottle! So, it’s funny cos the old people, who have nothing else to do, watch the bins like hawks. As soon as somebody throws a bag of rubbish into one of the bins, some old person vulture-like descends on the bin to see if they can find something useful! If they collect maybe 14 bottles, maybe they can get a meal or some vegetables for theirselves. No bad eh?