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Weather of today:
- Day: 27 degrees and cloudy
- Night 22 degrees
Sentence of today:
Cheers! Skål!
乾杯. Gānbēi.
Today's - Good to know:
Business hours:
China officially has a five-day working week. Banks, offices and government departments are normally open Monday to Friday, roughly from 9am until 5pm or 6pm (some closing two hours in the middle of the day.) Some banks have branches that are open at weekends as well. Saturday and Sunday are both public holidays, but most museums stay open on weekends and close on one weekday (usually Monday). Museums tend to stop selling tickets half an hour before they close. Bank of China branches are generally open weekdays from 9pm to noon and 2pm to 4.30pm, and 24 ATMs are plentiful. Travel agencies, foreign-exchange counters in tourist hotels and some of the local branches of the Bank of China have similar opening hours, but are generally open on weekends as well, at least in the morning. Shops are generally open from 10am to 10pm, while restaurants tend to run from 10.30am to 11pm, although some shut in the afternoon between the hour of 2pm and 5.30 pm. Internet cages are either open 8am to midnight or are open 24 hours. Note that many businesses have interruptions in their service or close at three points in the year: the three days following 1 May, the week after National Day on 1 October and the week following the Spring Festival in January or February.
Park are generally open from 6am to around 9pm or later, although they can open later and shut earlier in winter.
Today's tip:
Don't be afraid of walking over to a table with a bunch of Chinese guys drinking, they are very open minded, especially if you are foreigner, they often offer you food, cigarettes, or even beer. And it would be good if you worked on emptying a whole beer (500ml) at once, before drinking with the Chinese.
Dish of today:
Dried seafood and a grasshopper.
Today's Historical fact:
1958: The Great Leap Forward commences but the plans to rapidly industrialise China result in a disastrous famine that kills millions of Chinese.
My day:
Today was beach day! Weathercast said it should be sunny, and it certainly was. I went to the beach already at 10am, blue sky and lots of sunshine. I thought my body could take a couple of hours of sun before putting sun blocker on, so I could get I nice tan, but I should never have waited. I got a bit red all over, specially my back and arms. But in a couple of days it will turn into a nice brown colour.
I met a guy and his Mom at Momi café last week, I emailed a bit with him, and then we agreed to meet on the beach. He would come in the afternoon he said, and that was fine with me, then I could relax on my own for a couple of hours.
I mistakenly gave him a wrong number; so he couldn't contact me, but I found him after he walked pass me a little distance away. His Mom and his cousin, a good looking girl, and she could speak English, or at least better than him, but not the mom. They were all very nice, and they seemed to like me a lot. We were chatting both in Chinese and English, and it went pretty well. Practise my Chinese a lot this day. The cousin studies Logistic, and the guy music, guitar in particular. He was very fond of me; don't know if he was a bit gay, or just very fond of having a foreigner as a friend.
The Mom gave me some dried seafood, which I really didn't like, but just ate one piece to be nice, it should be famous in Dalian, and then of course she gave me the whole bag of it. Yummi! She also gave me cookies, and several bottles of Ice tea.
Chinese people have a completely different understanding off going to the beach then we do. For Chinese people it means, sitting in a tent or under an umbrella, just chatting, playing games or eating. It's not like us who just wanna enjoy the sun and jump into the water. The water was so nice, could spend hours floating out there, but before the family arrived, I had to have an eye on my back all the time, so wasn't so relaxing.
I asked the guy if he wanted to jump in the water with me, but he couldn't swim, so I just took a swim for my own. That was awesome!
They said they would drive me home, so after being on the beach for a while with them, we went home, the dad picked us up. The Mom said next time I come to Dalian, I will be invited for dinner. And the boy said several times, don't forget to contact me. Cute nice family.
When I arrived home, Li Guannan contacted me and asked if I wanted to join for dinner. Of course. After taking a shower, which was a bit painful because of the sunburn I took a cab to her families place.
I was really amazed about the apartment they lived in, her parents seem to have a lot of money, and that was defiantly reflected in the way they live. 180 m2 on the 16th floor, with a nice view, and the apartment looked like an expensive hotel suite. Was an astonishing place. I asked how much it cost, 20,000 per square meter, that's 3,6 mill, and that was without the intravenous, which you have to add another 700,000. That's a lot of money, and even more for a Chinese.
Before dinner, Li Guannan's Mom served us tea in the traditionally way. Which means these tiny teacups, and the teapot she used was worth 2 Wan, (Chinese Wan is 10,000 Yuan). Wow! For a teapot? But okay, it is a science to drink tea in China. There are so many different kinds of tea, and you have to serve it in a particular way.
At dinner was, Li Guannan's Mom, Dad, grandma and boyfriend Kristian, and then me. Was a nice relaxing dinner, and delicious too.
Beerfestival! After dinner, the three of us took a cap to Xinghai square, where the whole event took place. It's a huge square and it only cost 10 Yuan for the entrance. Inside was big big tents with all the different brands of Beer, Heinekin, Tsingdao, Carlsberg, Taiwanese beer, and of course, a lot of German beers. Each tent had a scene with life shows, mostly music performances, full power on the sound. Each tent had a little party on its own, a lot of beer and food.
First we went into a Taiwanese beer tent, there was a show, first someone singing, then A guy, performed some kind of trick, where he twisted a long metal wire around is neck, and then broke bricks with his hand and head. Everyone was seemed to like it, and there was a real good atmosphere in the tent, people sitting next to us, mostly Chinese men, with big bellies, cheering with us and everyone else was applauding. After tasting the three different kinds of beers, we went on. We went to the Carlsberg tent, could be nice with a cold Hof, but we got Tuborg instead, but slightly different from the beer we know from home, it was adapted to the Chinese people, which means a bit more light, or more waterish. There was also a great atmosphere in this tent, life show, lady singing popular Chinese songs; people were dancing on the tables, and singing along. We cheer with a bunch of younger people sitting together, one guy asked where we were from, I pointed to the bottle where it said Denmark, he just said, thank you, thank you. We sat down not so fare from them.
The neighbour table offered us food, cigarettes, and of course cheering. After a while, the guy from before came over to us with 4 cold Tuborgs, handed it to me and said thank you. He didn't say anything else, and went off again. Funny! And awesome, who would say no to free beer?
Other tents, Tsingdao, guys, drinking, have to finish it. Kristian couldn't, Li Guannan had to continue, and then I finished it. Bought a blue rose.
Another tent, free beers, lousy performances, ending up making a deal with Kristian, he would ate a scorpion if I ate a grasshopper, it tasted awful, after taking the first bite, and swallowing a bit, took a second bite, but spat it all out again, if was so bad. Kristian ate half of his scorpion, annoyingly saying it didn't taste so bad. f*** him, the grasshopper was awful.
The place closed at 11?? Took a cap home.
Bedtime! Goodnight!
Ps: I miss you Vince!
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