Saturday, December 4 - Sunday, December 5

Saturday, December 4

After a pretty decent nights sleep, I awoke around 8:30am. I had breakfast, and did some emails in the morning. At 11:30am, one of my friends from the office, Carol, picked me up to do some shopping. We took a very lengthy walk to the North through the vast underground shopping areas, and down to the Dalian Train Station. I had actually never gone that far on my past walking excursions. It was very clear that we were out of the touristy part of the city (I use that lightly as I didn't notice any non-Chinese even by the hotel shopping). Any, we crossed a few busy streets and made it to a very large building complex a solid 2 city blocks long. Inside, on the first floor was a huge food market - seafood, candies, nuts, and fruits. We ventured up the various floors (probably 6 in total). On those floors were an abolsute maze of tiny 10'x10' shops and walkways about 10' wide (maximum). They were quite crowded, warm, and I actually was getting quite a few suprised looks from the locals as I may have been the first non-Chinese to ever venture into this shopping area. (I am not kidding).

I can't go into any detaiil as to what I was shopping fo, as it would ruin suprises, but I was very suprised when almost no haggling was done - repeatedly they named a price (always very reasonable I thought) and stuck to it. Out of principal in China, you are always supposed to haggle on the price as they would take you as a sucker and think less of you if you didn't. This is even true on items that cost 5RMD (about $0.75). I did actually sport some really nice jet airplane displays, but they were still pretty expensive (around 300 RMB), so I passed on them.
It was now almost 2:00pm and I was getting worn ouf from the 3 hours of crowded walking, and confinement. Additionally, I was getting very hungry. We navigated our way all the way back ot hte Parkland Mall (just East of the Swishholel) and went to the food court on the fifth floor. Carol wanted the baked fish in a bowl meal (this one had some hot peppers and other vegetables in the broth). I also ordered the fried green beans, and a plate of spicey lightly-fried shrimp. Lunch was ok, a bit spicey for me. I believe the total cost (including 3 bowls of rice and a Coke) was 110RMB (about $15). Not too bad considering the shrimp could have fed 4 and the fish bowl - at least 8.
We then backtracked a bit and headed SE to a local sporting goods store recommended by Winson for Table Tennis supplies. I was looking to get some cheap Chinese paddles (which are still better than the generic ones I got with my table last year). We soon found the store, and noticed right across the street was a professional table tennis store that I had to check out. It was pretty small (about 20x40), but had tons of clothes, table tennis shoes, and of course tons of paddles (not prebuilt). We then went across the street to the sporting goos store and went downstairs to the table tennis section. The store featured about 100 different types of "blades" (the wooden handle and paddle), and then a ton of different rubbers (that go on the blades). Unfortunately they would cost at least 200RMB for one paddle (about $32). Not too bad, but since I don't know exactly what type I wanted (various spin and speed values), I just bough a pre-built DHS chinese paddlle for 100RMB (about $16). Looking later at Amazon.com, they were $25 - so not too bad. Plus, now I have a paddle that I can try out at the office next week.

We headed back towards the hotel and took a walk through the high-end international grocery store under the hotel and then called it a day. I thanked Carol for here time on a Saturday and headed up to my room. It was now 5:00pm. I took it easy for the night and ordered room service at 8:00pm. I went with the Russian beef Borsch soup, a BLT w/ french fries, and a glass of milk. Nothing special, except the milk tasted a bit nasty and they do not provide any where near enough ketchup for the fries.

Sunday, December 5

I again awoke around 8:30am after a restful night's sleep. I showered and had my standard breakfast in the Swishcafe. At 11:30am Winson came by the hotel as we had planned to do some mountain walking, however, the fog/pollution was too heavy today to see anything, so we simply went across the street and walked through "Labor Park" across the street for an hour or so. From there we took a taxi over near Olympic Park where we ate lunch at a small Hot Pot restaurant. This particular restaurant specialized in very thin slices of a river fish, whic was quite tasty. Additionally, we had shrimp, other fish, mushrooms, and two more unique pieces - stomach and congealed duck blood - oh yeah. The stomach wsa simply which spongy strips with very little taste and the consistancy of calamari. The duck blood was shaped into mini-meatloaf looking slices. They were a bit slimy, but nothing too crazy. Additionally, at this restaurant, you could choose various dipping sauces - with their specialty being ginger. I tried a number of them and they all closely resembled the sauces from Ginges Kahn's Mongolian BBQ in Wauwatosa. After nearly a 2 hour lunch, we took a taxi over to a sporting goods store, roughly the size of a Dunhams, to look for more table tennis paddles, but their selection was small. We then headed back to the hotel, and I showed Winson some more flight simulator things and called it a day (around 4:00pm).

The rest of the day I spent in my room, doing some reading and more flight simulator.