Shangdong Pacific Hotel Yantai

... yet were unfazed.

Being a port city, it's unsurprising that there is quite a collection of Western-influenced architecture here; and, as is my wont, I assiduously tried to see it all. I became more self-conscious of this habit when I read this week of one of Tolstoy's protagonists: "Looking at places of interest, not to mention that they had already seen everything, did not have for him, a Russian and an intelligent man, the inexplicable importance that ...

... time in her life so after Ji'nan she decided it was time for us to head to the coast. Well, we had no choice as Luo Wei's school had called her and requested that she return as soon as possible to Xi'an to help promote the school for new students.

So our time has now been cut drastically short.

After a huge lunch in Ji'nan we headed to the long distance bus station and grabbed the next bus ...

... Forbidden City was extremely impressive and the Lama Temple was gorgeous (still trying to get photobucket working). The little I saw of historic Beijing was very cool, I'm really excited to go back. You could really tell it had more of a sense of community among the neighborhoods and the people were very friendly and relaxed. The Summer Palace is definitely the most awesome place (and the one to which I forgot to bring my ...

Just recently I was visiting my best Chinese mate in the seaside city of Yantai. On this one day, while we were strolling through a mall, I heard this Chinese trance-dance song playing faintly off in the distance. I thought, "Oh man, that was my song! My friends and I used to jam to it at the many Chinese dance clubs we used to frequent". I never knew the name of that song, but I was about to ...

Ok folks, I've finally started writing a blog! Just getting to grips with this site, it seems pretty complicated so I'm not going to get down to any serious writing just yet. It's almost dinner time here, the weather's pretty nice today as it's just about the end of winter now and I'm just lazing around. Have been watching some random TV ...

Sanda (Chinese kickboxing) was probably the only thing I expected to be part of shaolin training, the object is pretty straight forward, be able to hit the other guy and not get hit yourself. The training was quite annoying because throwing one good punch means drilling it thousands of times and then came combinations and other types of punches and so on and so forth until you eventually get good. After four months of training I can say that I can throw ...

... deadly of all, he could easily kill anyone within a radius of a few feet of him, knew all the pressure points to diasable people and was a killing machine, despite his belly and unthreatening aura. The headmaster was my tai chi master for most of my time, a good teacher though he liked to overcharge people for everything which I did not like much. He also pretended not to know English when he really did, he even corrected translators somtimes, smart man.

... to think it just felt nice as it swept along the floor so that was all that mattered. Then I opened my eyes, saw myself in the mirror and everyone commenting on how best to wear my hair, and was met with the realization that I had just become the Chinese students' barbie doll. The show is tonight. I just remembered I can't act, and I stutter and get the tones wrong when I speak Chinese in my room, much less on stage. Pictures and a follow-up entry to come.

... have made some more new friends - Daniel, Andrew, Richard and co... They seem like a really fun group and they've promised to teach me martial arts - they all love it and have permantently purple knuckles - hardcore! Will let you know how the lessons go... Havannas and Cape of Storms (discovered it's not Caper Storms last week!) are still the spots to be on the weekend - games of fusball, darts and pool and lots of dancing to be done. Have had more excellent and blurry nights there ...

... yourself. Aside for the sad side of the zoo I can't tell you how dangerous it was too! I could easily have put my head in a hippo's mouth had the desire so taken hold of me! I didn't in case you were wondering...! Perhaps the most 'secure' enclosure was that of the camel's... a rope... nice... Anyway I've included footage of the hippo's comfortable home, the wolf pacing the cage with its cub in its mouth and the camel's rope ...