China - Week 1

Lessons
We were all matched up with a Chinese student between two forgein students to be our language partner. It was great to meet someone from a completely different culture, with a lot of different views, but still be able to talk about those things that all young adults have in common. For example, I'd move from being interrogated about the features of facebook, to talking about sport and music. The students were lovely though and very keen to get to know us and swap cultures.
Although everyone was quiet in our first lessons, as we didn't know what to expect, there was always something to break the ice, such as a cat wandering under our desks or a common complaint of the noise of cicadas outside. The campus must have been teeming with them because the noise was so loud! Our basic Chinese lessons consisted of repeating sounds of the Chinese alphabet for several hours, but language lessons took off a bit more as we learnt basic phrases. In the afternoons we did paper-cutting and calligraphy.
Everyone got very ill this week though. None of us could pin down a certain food stall or cause so I think it was the change of diet and the heat on top of that. The teachers eventually got used to us running out of class... We also got the impression that the Russian students were not so friendly as they didn't really talk in class. The Swedish students however, were very keen to make friends.

Free time
This week we had a couple of trips into town to have a look around Dalian. We had a look at the extensive underground shopping centre and around a few markets. The shopping centre had lots of little shops, some often doubling themselves as the changing room with a curtain that could be put across the door! The city is full of skyscrapers and we ended up getting fairly confused. There were a few more unusual sights, such as a street stall selling fried urchins to eat and market stalls selling a variety of cats, dogs, turtles and other pets. There was also a larger, fancy shopping centre but selling mainly designer items. The food hall fascinated us though, will large, unusual vegetables and all sorts of animal parts! In the evening we found a cool American-theme outside bar with yummy cocktails, which was a really good opportunity to socialise.

Afternoon off

On our afternoon off we went to the beach with some of the Chinese students. Although it was still foggy, the beach was ridiculously packed! But we clambered over some rocks to find a less-full beach around the corner. I was still feeling a bit ill but I didn't want to miss out! The students took us to a porridge restaurant for dinner. I foolishly chose sweetcorn and sweet potato... it was apparently a 'sweet' rather than savoury one and very sugary! However then we headed over to the first night of a big beer festival. It was in a big park and was crowded, but atmospheric! There were loads of big beer tents with shows but you had to pay to go in. Some of the boys blagged their way in claiming they were from that well-known British rock group DH1... and they even appeared on the news! We found a stall selling fried scorpions, spiders and locusts. Apparently this was also a novelty for the Chinese. I was intrigued but they were fairly expensive, however some folk were brave enough to try!