My first impression of Dalian was that it is a lot less crowded than Beijing.

It seems to be nicer here in terms of air quality, cleanliness, and modernity. When we arrived we got picked up by Xinli’s friends and some bus drivers. We packed all of our luggage into one bus and rode into the city from the train station. I got to ride with an employee of the hotel in a really nice BMW X5. We were listening to some really cool Chinese music, which I loved. I liked being able to experience a more normal car ride, and not always being on a bus. It was a nice change and I enjoyed the ride to the hotel.

Once we got to our hotel we changed and got ready for breakfast. We then went to visit a high school and an elementary school. The elementary school we visited was very high-tech and was beautiful. Many people were asking if it was a private school and how much the tuition was only to find out that it was actually a public school. The principal of the school stressed to us how much they valued education. They showed us a classroom that had a gigantic touch screen in the middle of it. It was probably 10 feet high and 20 feet wide. It just looked like a giant iPad. You could do homework problems on it. It looked like a great tool for collaboration. There were also projectors that touched three walls in the room. It was amazing and the capability of the classroom made me jealous that we don’t have anything like it at Penn State. We also saw a coffee shop, a pottery classroom, and a huge stadium with a soccer field and track and field equipment. The stadium was really large – bigger than many high school stadiums in the United States.

This is what a public school’s elementary soccer field looks like.

When we arrived at the high school, the students were outside waiting for us to come. They were so excited to see us and they ran to meet us and greet us with gifts; they were extremely welcoming. We got to tour their school and they even let me play soccer with their soccer team. I wanted to play soccer in China, and being able to play with a high school team was probably the best experience I could have asked for. We didn’t play for long, but it was really fun and I am glad they let this random American girl join their game. After playing soccer, they let us practice writing characters and gave us a great lunch. The two girls I was with had near perfect English, I was very impressed. They asked me questions about America and I learned that their High School years are much stricter than ours. They have to live on their school campus for a month before their gaokao exam which could be compared to our SAT’s. It is a huge 2-day exam that determines if they can go to college and which college they can go to. They also told me that they have mandatory study time and practically study all day in preparation for the gaokao. They go to class 6 days a week and sit in rooms studying. I also found it interesting that they said they can’t date anyone. Although some of them do, they have to do it in secret. The students I was with were also explaining to me that if you play sports that means you will usually go on to play professionally and if you don’t play sports they make you focus on studying and you will usually go on to go to college. It didn’t seem like there was a middle, you had to pick a side. Many of the students I was with said they didn’t play sports much and many of the students who were playing sports focused on the sport a lot more than classes. I learned a lot about the culture difference when it comes to high school from meeting with the high school students in Dalian.

My new friends from a high school in Dalian.

We then went to visit the UFO and got a great view of Dalian. We hiked up a lot of stairs to the top of a huge hill and could see Dalian all around us from the top.

Great view of the city from the UFO. (A little smoggy)

After visiting the UFO, we went back to our hotel and got ready to go to our first dinner in Dalian. At dinner they provided us with a lot of beer and seafood. They brought out Rice Liquor, which is very popular in China, towards the end of the meal. It is a really strong alcohol, you can smell it from 3 feet away. I was surprised that everyone of all ages in China was pretty good at drinking socially. They were very good at handling their liquor. Apparently they start drinking very young in China and it helps build up their tolerance. After dinner, we sang some Karaoke and then went back to our hotel rooms for the night.

Our next day in Dalian, we went and visited a large square. It used to be ocean and they built this square right where the sea used to be. We then got to walk around Dalian a little bit, see some nice architecture, and then head to lunch. After lunch we went to another plaza that had a huge ramp. The ramp looked like a halfpipe and you could run/walk all the way up to the top of the ramp. You can get away with a lot more in China than you would be able to in America. On the ramp there is a yellow line that you aren’t suppossed to cross, but everyone was crossing it and getting all the way to the edge of the ramp. There was no one stopping them from doing so either.

Yeah, we went to the top of the ramp too…

The ramp was located next to a small amusement park, so we were given an hour to go explore it. There were go karts, bumper cars, roller coasters, pirate ships, and many more rides all around. It surprised me that kids in China have the same type of rides at amusement parks as us and that they have the same type of fun. I don’t know why, but I didn’t expect it, but it was really cool to find out and see.

After visiting the plaza, we went back to our hotel to get ready for dinner. One of Xinli’s friends was hosting an extremely fancy dinner for us.

We all got dressed up and headed to dinner.

There was more seafood and I tried a bunch of new food. There was sea cucumber which I did not really enjoy. I thought it tasted like a slimy gummy bear. I wasn’t able to finish it. I also ate a piece of chicken wrapped in leaf. I was sitting next to our friend Tong, who is the son of the host, and he was helping me learn how to eat some of the food. At the end of a meal, the Chinese put out fruit. We have been eating family style meals so every dish is placed on a huge lazy susan. The table we ate our meal at was gigantic and there were about 35 of us seated around it. The turntable was also huge, but because there were so many people around the table, the difference in the circumference of the table and the lazy susan was a lot greater than if we were sitting at a small table. This caused the seats to be further away from the lazy susan – or more importantly, the food! Sometimes we had to stretch to reach for food, and just to make it more difficult, the turn table was automatic! It kept spinning and sometimes a dish would pass you by before you even had a chance to grab what you wanted. When I saw nectarines on the table, I knew that the meal was over. They usually like to provide melon. Watermelon is very popular, but canteloupe and honeydew are often given at the end of the meal. I have really been missing fruit, I eat so much fruit back home and that is not as common here. So when I saw the nectarines on the table I grabbed a few. A lot of people had been having a lot to drink, so they weren’t neccessarily paying attention to the table. I was lucky and got to grab some early on. I shared them, but I definitely could have eaten all of them on my own if given the chance.

After dinner, we went back to our hotel and Tong took us to a Karaoke place. We sang for a while and then headed back to our hotel. The next morning we were able to go up to the top floor of the hotel and see the CEO’s penthouse. It was amazing up there. It was so beautiful and spacious. There was even a secret elevator to get up to his penthouse. I wondered what it would be like living in a hotel. I’m sure he is used to it at this point and it is probably no different than living in a really fancy apartment building, but it is very different than anything I have ever experienced.

Once our tour of the penthouse was over we were able to head to the airport to catch our flight to Xian. When we got to the airport, we saw a Subway and everyone freaked out a little bit. I wouldn’t say I am sick of Chinese food, but the way meals work in China, especially the meals we have been having, causes a lot of repetition in food choice. There is not much differentiation between breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And we have been eating family style meals, which often causes you to eat a little bit of the same things every meal. So seeing a Subway, (with bread!) made us go crazy!

We saw a lot of people wearing these around cities, Kent wanted to give it a try.

Location: Dalian, China