The Beginning of the End

Right. We've started wearing shorts to school, we've gone back to spending Friday's drinking at hopscotch and trying to kill each other on the bumper cars, we've had a barbecue at the beach, there are giant ants everywhere, we eat meat on sticks outside again, chubby middle-aged Chinese guys are rolling up their tops and letting their guys hang loose. I'm calling it, it's Summer. Summer in Dalian turns the city into a completely different place. After a bleak and frankly desolate [and frickin' windy] Winter, it's nice to have rays of hope shining through the classroom windows. Instead of hustling home or to a cafe after lessons, we eat lunch outside and frolic [yes, frolic] on patches of grass. It's no Greenwich park, but it'll do.

Pictures of  劳动公园 [Laodong gongyuan, Labour Park]

The whole feel of Dalian is different too. Despite being in the grips of boredom, you find that you're more likely to be arsed to do things when the weather's nice. We go to the [the] park and drink beer during the day like the foreign hooligans we came abroad to represent in the first place, and some of us have even started exercising. To be fair, some people were training for the sports fair [see Sports Day for more crazy China details], whereas I'm just starkly aware of the fact that I've put on a few, and have decided to jump on the sports-zeal bandwagon.

Our campus turns into a lovely little wilderness in the Summer

In other news, you know your year abroad is truly coming to an end when people you've spent your whole 9 months with start leaving. I'd like to semi-dedicate this post to my good friend Warren, by far one of my favourite people in Dalian, and one of the few Americans who doesn't irritate me just because of his nationality. His sharp wit and sarcasm will be missed, as will his blunt remarks and 'love' of teaching. God, I'm really selling him aren't I? It's alright, he's quite good-looking though which makes up for it. Anyway, I'm gonna miss him, we're all gonna miss him. But I'm mainly jealous that he gets to leave and I have to stay here. He may be leaving during the period of best weather, but at least he's leaving on a high.

Me and Warren

Warren being manly [in a Chinese way]