Peninsula Resort Yantai

... and look down at the rocks by the sea and count a dozen such couples all being photographed in a small space. It is corny in the extreme. And the forced expressions on their faces somehow manages to be both nauseating and comical. I can't work out what is most objectionable about this phenomenon: the mawkish sentimentality, the artificiality, or the completely unimaginitive repetitiveness of it all: I'm just willing one of the men to perhaps wear a light grey suit.

... definitely on the lonely side. I have discovered I'm capable of taking a language class entirely in Chinese, though; and frankly, it's about time. The group of people is great though, and from all over and from all different backgrounds (we have one sorority girl and a Honduran guy from the Bronx whose mom only went to school through 3rd grade). It's actually become a lot of fun to speak in Chinese - using English actually ...

... 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

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 ...

One of the oddest things to get used to out here is the strange hygienic practices. The people seem to think urinating is not something which necessarily needs to be done in private. For one there are not always doors on the public toilets and even when they are they are not always used. I learnt this the hard way at the academy when I walked into the toilets at 4am to use the cubicle I normally do in the centre and just as I went up to it the dim ...

... really knew how old he really is) with a big dragon tattoo, a dangerous smile and never ending enthusiasm and energy. He moves faster than any other master and liked to channel his energy into dancing to fast music (great break dancer) and every strike he did came with his patented "da!." His favourite words were "Gooda and hokay," he was a lot of fun. A great moment was when I lent him my ipod and he was listening to the world's greatest by R Kelly ...

... than the trains (about twice as much). Secondly, they take the same amount of time as the slow train, which stops at every little town. It took us 15 hours to cover about 300 miles. In addition, during the holiday season, more people want to travel on the buses than there are beds, so they solve the problem by selling floor seats. That meant that my already narrow bunk was invaded by the knees and elbows of a sketchy looking, overly made-up girl who managed to poke me ...

... owned and run buy the people who make the clothes themselves. And then got ready to go out to the 'John Lennon' bar, which btw probably doesn't exist! Beforehand though we had a few drinks in the hotel and I learned 2 new drinking games: never have I ever where you say something like 'never have I ever had my ears pierced' and everyone who has to have drink. 21 which is a great game but slightly too complicated to explain but what I will say was that Bens rule that no one could ...

Well I'm in Taiyuan now, having said my fond farewells to Yantai, so thought I better update you briefly on the events on the last few weeks. Sorry about all the drinking parents, too many goodbyes to say! Um, well after returning from my travels we had the joy of a week of saying goodbye to Alex and Emily in various guises. We went for an amazing meal the night before they left at a restaurant where u could basically pick anything you wanted to eat, it was very ...