My Eating Habits Have Gone To The Dogs!

I had an interesting culinary experience for my dinner. Dog soup. I had lunch with a student and we went to a Korean place near the campus. She suggested we try the dog soup. Well, I thought I may as well. I had to try I some time! What was it like? Since it was in a soup, I guess it looked like lamb meat. That sort of texture. Then again, it was beef-esque but had a stronger taste, a sort of lingering taste. This was a cheap enough restaurant, so maybe this reflected in the taste (although the beef dish we had was lovely) but the dog soup wasn’t great. Nothing too special! Maybe Korean BBQ dog meat would be nicer.

The Chinese May holiday is upon us. I have a week off next week. I had a couple of plans, which fell through. However, hopefully now I should be re-uniting with Rob for a trip to Changbai Shan in Jilin Province (Northwest of Dalian). As with the other forced holidays in China, most tourist spots (Tai Shan, Yellow Mountain, Guilin/Yangshuo etc) will be thronged with tourists. We reckon the throngs might be marginally less in Changbai Shan, since it is supposed to be cold there. We will see. Rob has the job of procuring bus/train tickets tomorrow. I don’t know if there will be any left.

Great Gig

Tonight the Uni’s guitar club held a gig on campus to a packed house of around 1,000 people! 2 of my students were heavily involved: one (Paul) being in one of the bands and also one of the main organisers and Vivian being the energetic hostess! What tallented students I have! Oh yeah, and they also let me play and sing too.

This was the biggest audience I’d played in font of and I was actually a bit nervous. I thought I might mess up the Chinese song. Also, I am not really used to microphones and the like, so I was anxious about that.

The night started off with Gong Bin’s band lashing out a Chinese rock/pop song. They then moved on to the classical section. They had a few pro musicians in there, who were really good. I was hanging out with them backstage, you know!

They then moved into the “popular” section, of which I was a part. They had a couple of bands. They played ok but sometimes not in sync! Then came me. Everything went fine except for the mic that kept slipping down. A roadie (student!!) had to come in every so often to sort it out. I gave them Live Forever (Oasis) followed by still the only Chinese song in my repertoire, i.e.月亮代表我得心 (The Moon Represents My Heart).

I finished off with Country Roads. They love a bit of Country Roads, so they do. I taught it to the students last week and I think some of them came along tonight. I was happy with my singing and playing, so I came off stage smiling! No flowers though. I’ll have to fail that student who said she’d come up onstage and give me flowers (the Chinese usually give flowers to performers on stage). I was surprisingly unfased by the 1000 or so people in the audience! Except for when they cheered, haha!

The rock section closed off the night. One or two bands, who could really play, including Paul’s! One band with a female drummer were pretty good too!

Fair play to all the students!

This was one of the most memorable evenings I've had in the Uni! I have some pics of this on my flickr site.

New Wheels

I have been away from cyberspace for a while due to ADSL problems. I was cut off around 10 days ago! A student informed me that they would not cut us off and we could pay whenever. I guess I should have really checked it out myself. After some more hiccups, I got internet back on Friday. Maybe I should give the internet up. That way I might do more other stuff!

I bought myself a pair of wheels today. Well, I did get a frame, brakes, gears and so on too….

The Wal-Mart special. Strong brand mountain bike for 330 yuan (around 30 euro)! Hope it lives up to its brand name!

I cycled it back from Wal-Mart to the house, taking in the big hill at Heishijiao and some other hills. Hills, I am told, are the reason that Dalian folk don’t cycle. Lazy gits! I’ll have to try and find some quiet places to cycle here in Dalian.

The bike doesn’t seem the worst. Gears work but the saddle is a bit low. I might see if I can get another seat post somewhere. Chinese people in general cycle with the saddle too low. You can see their knees are half-bent on the downward pedal stroke. Leg should be nearly straight. Because of Chinese custom, it is hard to get bikes with high saddles!

Rob also bought one. So, hopefully we can head off together on the bikes. Maybe tackle Binhai Road, famous for its seaside scenery! Should be nice when the weather warms up a bit!

Dalian Gaelic Football

Calling all sports fans!

A new sport is coming to Dalian: Gaelic Football! For those who don't know, Gaelic football is an Irish sport, lying somewhere between soccer and rugby! It is an extremely fast, skilful, high-scoring and action-packed sport. Faster-paced and more physical than soccer, this sport is extremely popular in Ireland, especially in the summer when the All-Ireland Championships are held.

Anyways, some Irish people in Dalian have set up a Gaelic football team here, the aim being to compete in the Asia Gaelic Games competition in Shanghai in September! The lads are looking for all people, men and women, from all countries to join in. Training will be held in Olympic Square at 6pm on Saturdays, the first training session being held today!

If you are looking for a new sport, then I reckon this could be a good chance! For more info, you can contact me.

Long Time No Blog

Nothing much interesting happening around here these days. Business as usual. Teaching, learning Chinese, going out for the odd beer!

Spring time has finally arrived in Dalian and it’s now quite pleasant outside. Can get quite windy some times but today has been quite nice!

I think some of the classes are warming up a bit. Got good discussion out of them today on the topic of dreams. A lot of the students do know the answers to questions but are too shy/lacking in confidence with English or just lazy to answer! I think we need to knock the laziness on the head cos it is infectious! I haven’t had much discipline problems yet although I did have to put one or 2 smart arses in their places today!

May holiday is coming up. This is a forced holiday, so the whole country will be on holidays for the first week of May. Good deals will be hard to come by but I don’t fancy sticking around here for it. Need to sort something out sharpish!

Since spring is here, I’ll have to get out and see some of Dalian’s sights and scenic spots that I haven’t seen yet. Binhai Road is supposed to be nice. I wouldn’t mind cycling it but I heard it’s only one lane each side and it’s a coastal scenic road. Probably not that safe for cyclists!

I showed the film The Commitments to a Chinese friend recently. I don’t think much was understood, especially with every second word being fuck, bollocks, shit, wanker, ride, … I think the humour sort of got lost there!