Runlong Hotel Yantai

It was almost with a sense of euphoria that I arrived in Yantai. I don't really know what prompted this. Perhaps it was relief that the ship hadn't sunk on the way there; perhaps we can take a purely materialist view and say that it was just a chemical cause; perhaps it was the friendly, clean, good value and well-situated hotel that I checked into; or perhaps it was the effect of the friendliness of the largely blue collar population who observed me with ...

... the huge boat load day after day after day.<br>Allowing no balance, just taking it all for us....Luo Wei had never thought of the world beneath before.<br><br>Anyhow, to the blog.....besides visiting China's most popular province and being treated as a cash cow by greedy Shandong people, the main reason for coming here with Luo Wei was to take her to the east coast where she could visit the beach for the ...

... t have felt much different. Even the kid from New York says Beijing seemed pretty much the same as American cities. Plus, the complete lack of anything natural (including something as basic as sky) was definitely starting to get to me and the similarity was actually kind of frustrating. When I return, however, I'm expecting good weather because it literally improves visibly every day. Beijing did have some cool stuff ...

... out. Turns out the song was playing real loud on some Chinese guy's cell phone, he was trance-dancing right there in middle of the mall! I said, "Say man, what's the name of that sweet song?" That boy didn't even stop dancing, he just said,"Bing He Shi Dai". Needless to say, now I jam to it on my iPod. For the best China travel information and tips on the Internet check out: www.askreddragon.com

... learning a bit of Chinese, snacking and drinking tea - taking it easy until training starts again tomorrow! Our group has a week until we're to be tested on the first proper fist form that we've been taught so I imagine this week will be a tough one. That's about all there is to report but will hopefully start updating sometime this week

... began to realize my leg was just a few inches off my face. I had my usual pain reaction and started singing "Hey Jude" by the Beatles. It made me happy. Power stretching is also the place where Gunnar (aka Brother number 1) came up with his very own way of looking at it. He said "pain is just gayness leaving the body." Interpret it any way you like, it just seemed profound at the time. He was also famous for saying "don't cheat yourself" and we all tried not to...

... you but brutal in his teaching. He made students pay for mistakes (I heard) but his students were also very good at what they did which makes me think he was a good teacher. Chen Shifu was the baji master, the one who usually attracts the most attention with his greatness. He loved rave music, Jackie Chan, dark sunglasses, hanging out with students and chinese chess. He was the most fun master of all, really weird considering his martial art was the ...

... a dance studio in the city. There, the dance instructors oohed and ahhed over my white white skin (it's a complement here... i still kind of cringe when I hear it though) and told me they had the perfect dress for me, brand new from Hong Kong. Then I saw the dress. This dress is a masterpiece. I think i must have had one like it for one of my barbies at some point.... it's hot pink, with a ruffly top half and long pleated bottom. I tried to smile, and ...

... used very loosely (I think their definition is "pale") . One teacher upgraded it to "sexy, beautiful and cool" on MSN - impressive if a little creepy! And at one dinner outing the geography teacher proceeded to stroke my arm and coo over the colour of my skin - it's an alternate universe! Mhairi, Ben and I have been out for local drinks and dinner with the University students (Ma Long, Juan, Jesus - said Hey - Zeus! - Graham, Jonathan, Bella etc...) and then on to downtown where ...

... these things and have a rather c'est la vie attitude to things that aren't quite up to Western standards, but frankly it was really quite upsetting. The cages were tiny, and the animals had nothing to do. Bizzarely the most well provided for animals were the ducks, who seemed to have a pretty good and enormous enclosure. As for the lions, tigers etc... not really worth describing so I've put some video footage up for you to see ...