General Life

After we finished with the party for Kathy we still had a lot of time in China before Kathy had to leave for the states. The weather was still cold outside but was just starting to get warmer. It was no longer below zero but it was still pretty cool. There were many friends to make and places to eat. Some of our old friends hung out with us. We all had a great time sitting down in a restaurant and talking about how difficult it was to live in China. Let's see, I think a difficult day for Kathy, Barbara, Wendy, Lisa and other new friends was to start out at breakfast, do some shopping, catch a lunch, get the nails done along with a pedicure and finish it off with a few hours at the spa for a foot and body massage. I know this is difficult to have to put up with but luckily I didn't have too. I only had to work all day long.

Once the woman were all worn out after the difficult day, they would get ready to go out to dinner with the guys. There are many wonderful places to eat both in KiaFiaChu and in downtown Dalian. One of the fun places to go to is the Paulenar Bar. In this restaurant there is wonderful German type food and the brats are good. The German beer is delicious. I ordered the Venice brats and Kathy ordered a salmon salad. Well, my food was good but when they brought Kathy's salad it actually had raw salmon on it. There was no way this was going to be eaten. We sent it back and wanted them to cook the salmon. They did but when it was brought back again, it was still raw. She ended up ordering something else. We still sat back and enjoyed the Filipino band that played.

Here we are enjoying Paulenar Bar. Beer and Brats

Another fun bar that we frequent regularly is Friends bar. We are always greeted with open arms by Krystal the bar owner. She is this tiny Chinese woman that remembers everyone that ever comes into her bar. Kathy and I have gone there with our friends every time she comes to visit. Krystal takes pictures of everyone and of course, Kathy and I have our pictures up on the wall. That is how friendly it is there. In this bar Krystal had a wonderful game that helped her sell drinks. It is called the shots around the world. In this game you chose from a list of shots from 21 different countries. You need to choose one type of shot from each country and finish them in 3 month time. After you have completed drinking some type of shot of booze from each country you are allowed to choose a bottle of one of the drinks you tried. Everyone was doing it. Many folks have done a number of them. Once they finish the first 21 shots they start on another round. I had completed only one game. That is enough for me. I chose a bottle of 10 year old Glenmorangie Scotish Whisky. I have no idea what I am going to do with it but it was pretty good when I had the shot.

Proud completers of around the world

Kathy's final night in Dalian this time had us finishing up at Friends. She needed to get up in the morning to catch a flight but that did not stop us from having a few going away drinks. We did not stay out too late but it was fun and relaxing. Cheers Kathy until the next trip.

You can see it was two for one night.

About a month after Kathy left it was really starting to get nice in Dalian as far as the weather goes. It was cherry blossom time. They say the best cherries in China are in the Dalian region. The next trip we decided to make was down to a city called Lucian. This is a small city farther south on the peninsula of Dalian. It is supposed to be the best place to see the Cherry blossoms when they begin to bloom. We took the 2 hour drive to south of Dalian in search of some good picture taking opportunity. Boy, were we disappointed. We were about a week early on for being able to see some good cherry orchards in bloom. It ended up being a stick festival instead of a cherry blossom festival. It was a fun trip none the less. After we visited the stick orchards we went to an old Japanese prisoner camp for political prisoners. This was an eye opener. They tortured many Korean and Japanese folks for their beliefs. This area a China was controlled by the Japanese at one time and the folks who were against the Japanese political philosophy were tortured and killed.

Here is the stick blossom festival

I was lucky to find a couple trees with blossoms on them

Trees with blossoms were few

The front of the Japanese Political Prison

These are actual skeletal remains in a barrel These prisoners were put in barrels and buried alive

Once we left the prison we went to a tiger park. This was not as good as the one in Harbin though. It was dirtier and the animals did not look too healthy. Not a place we would visit again. It was hard to see the animals in the bad conditions. I did actually get to feed the tigers with a live chicken. That was pretty cool to see.

Prior to my upcoming hike on the mountain on the 8th, Barbara, Brian, Jackie, Nicholas and myself decided to take in the zoo for a day. It was a beautiful weekend so why waste a good sunny day in May in Dalian China? Off we went. The Dalian is a very nice zoo and you can get very close to the animals. In fact, with some type of animals you can actually walk among them and pet them. Very spacious very nice zoo.

King of the Beasts

Queen of the beasts. Here is displayed a rare wild animal known for the shopping habits and wine drinking.

It was cool to walk amongst the animals

We could actually pet the animals as well

The following weekend ended up being my birthday. I decided to go for a hike on my 53rd birthday. I have done this hike before. It is a pretty vigorius hike. It is on Black Mountain. We go up one side, reach the summit by the communication towers and then down the other side. This hike takes about 4 hours. After a night of having fun at Obsiden I got up firs thing in the morning and went for the big hike.

the hike is very pretty and it was a nice warm day
Here is a temple up in the middle of the mountain

this is a long and difficult hike in some areas

Great way to spend my birthday. Even at 53 I can still climb the mountains

This was it for the Month of May. I was able to head home the end of May for some time off and going to many parties for graduation. Both Brian and Kevin graduated in May this year. Brian from college and Kevin from high school.