June 19, 2007
Dalian (CHINA)
Reliving My Cousin Vinny and a Day at the Mountain
Anyone
who has ever seen the movie My Cousin Vinny will
understand what my morning was like today (and if you
haven't seen the movie I highly recommend it)...
The tiny town we are staying in has one street running through it, and our hotel room was situated on the second floor facing the street - with all the windows open to battle the room's heat. By 4:30am the sun was up (all of China is on Beijing time), and shortly thereafter the town followed suit. But it wasn't the voices that had me openly cursing, it was the wankers in the over-sized trucks who spent 40 minutes honking for no apparent reason. Thank goodness I slept so much yesterday because it was impossible to sleep through the noise.
Breakfast
was served at 6:30am, but I ate - or rather, drank
- mine at the shop next door as I went through packet
after packet of instant coffee. While I certainly enjoy
tea, it simply isn't strong enough for mornings.
We
were aboard the bus by 7am and entered the park shortly
thereafter. We first took a boat ride through the park, but I
was too busy chatting with our tour guide about
transport to Japan to relax amid the pleasing scenery.
With all these worries, I hope I don't turn into one of those heart attack victims waiting to happen.
Speaking of heart attacks, Chris (Lehigh University) certainly looks like he was on the brink of having one after he decided to try the USD$2 zip-line on offer. He is a damn good scientist and one of the brightest people I know, but adventure sports (if you can even call a zip-line such a thing) obviously aren't his cup of tea.
The rest of the afternoon was spent on more boat rides, admiring the scenery, and savoring the time away from work.
Before heading back to Dalian, we stopped at our hotel for lunch (the fourth time in the past 24 hours) and several students bought jade from nearby stores. It will be interesting to see how they manage to bring 10kg chunks of rock on the return flight to the United States, but as engineers I am sure they will figure something out.