China - Hello Dalian

My first long-haul flight was over. I couldn't get to sleep but it turns out insomniacs get secret midnight ice-cream supplies! Every cloud...
We were met by staff and students at the airport (looking for Duran University or something similar!) and climbed sleepily on to a bus to the hotel. My first impressions of China were 1)It's hot and 2)It does not look like Mulan. It was far more built-up and industrial than I was expecting. (Left is the view from my window facing the uni campus)
I sat on my hotel bed and the first thing I noticed was... my legs were HUGE! They'd swollen to twice the size. I soon forgot about them though and fell asleep. When I woke up I realised I had no idea where to find everyone else. On the other hand even if I had, I had to wait for my mystery roommate or she wouldn't be able to get in! She arrived late and showed me some photos from her travels.
The next day we went to Dalian University to register for the course. It was a big, modern campus although we past some rather cramped and dilapidated-looking accommodation. Each day of our course we had chinese lessons in the morning, then cultural/history and then an activity in the afternoon (e.g. calligraphy, paper-cutting, chinese painting...). We also had some days off when we could explore the city and weekend trips to other cities.

Weather report: Our 'orientation' day was supposed to consist of a town tour, but it started pouring down! After our emergency-scheduled tai-chi lesson, we made a dash to our staff's hotel but had to take off our shoes and WADE, knee-deep before we got there! I made the mistake of taking a kag for rain... considering how hot it was an umbrella would have been a much better idea! It was also really foggy. The fog thinned and thickened but never truly went away. We assumed it was smog but the students said it was unusual at that time of year. It did mean the heat was really dense and muggy for our stay.
We dived into the restaurant and then learnt that whilst most things were at least half the price in China, drinking coffee and alcohol out are not. In fact, one of the students said they socialise over dinner and only businessmen go out for coffee because it is more expensive!