July 22, 2007
Dalian (CHINA)
A Singaporean Friend Visits Dalian for the Weekend
With only one week to go before "meltdown" (the submission of all my summer research), a Singaporean friend, Wai San, came to visit me in Dalian. Wai San was my next-door neighbor in Singapore, and after he and his brother saw how much I love traveling they both did the unthinkable - for a Singaporean - and took a summer off to backpack across Europe. This was the first time I have seen him since his return. I guess the whole "seeing new things" experience rubbed off on him because he is now interning for an American MNC (Multi-National Company) in Beijing.
I
ended up showing him all the usual sights around Dalian,
and doing so only re-iterated what a beautiful city this
is. It is strange because I had never heard
of Dalian before this summer, but amongst Chinese it is
really quite famous.
In my mind,, the real highlights of the weekend had nothing
to do with all the "touristy" stuff, but came from the
kind of experiences that can never be captured in a tour
itinerary. For
example, on Saturday afternoon Ryan and I took Wai San
out to play pick-up football at the brand-new fields
near campus. The match was basically foreigners
(America, Singapore, Guinea, Russia, Argentina, Nepal,
and South Korea) versus local Chinese. I know "soccer"
isn't very popular in the States, but it is the
international sport, and the easiest way to make friends
and earn other people's respect.
We
decided to follow up the match with a Sichuan dinner, so
Ryan and I treated Wai San and a group of Chinese
friends at a local restaurant. As I have mentioned
before, Sichuan food is my favorite style of Chinese
cooking, and our dishes for the evening included: rabbit
meat with dried chilis, tofu soup with vegetables,
braised eggplant, a mixed dish of pig stomach, heart,
and tongue with a spicy chili sauce, green beans, and
diced chicken served with peanuts and peppercorns.
Eating all that hot food right after playing football
was not the best idea, and my stomach has yet to stop
complaining about it.
Wai San caught a night bus back to Beijing on Sunday evening, and he is doing me a huge favor by booking my train ticket for the 25 hour ride from Beijing to Hong Kong on August 31st. So far, this train ticket is the entire extent of my travel preparations. It is somewhat reminiscent of when I embarked on my first backpacking trip - Shanghai to Delhi - on year ago to the day. Hopefully the experience will be every bit as rewarding because my willingness to plan certainly hasn't improved.