Binghai Road

Today we went for a great walk along the coast of Dalian. We followed a road on a really nice boarded path that was 12km (still don't really know conversion). Got a great view of the coastal part of the city, some exercise, and had an amazing experience with a random group of people picnicking on the trail. It was great, as we were walking by we were all looking at this big spread of food they had, and were about ready to get lunch ourselves. One of the guys offered me a roll looking thing and gestured for me to sit down. So, I did, and soon we were sharing beers, soda, cucumbers and fish with about 10 Chinese people who didn't speak any English. Actually, they spoke about as much English as I speak Chinese, and their 10 and 12 year old kids were the best. It was one of the best experiences of our trip! We managed to enjoy a meal, have decent conversation and meet some great people.. Everytime one of us would take a drink they would all drink and say "CHEERS!" They were super generous and the food and beers were great. I hope that someday we can return the favor to some random travellers who don't speak English when we are back home.

PICS

hello again- if you would like to see some pics of us but don't have facebook please go to the following links.

Dalian life- http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2199774&l=1fa5c&id=6405169
Amanda's Birthday-
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2200033&l=13c46&id=6405169

Update-

Hello everyone, friends and family. just wanted to briefly fill you in on how we're settling in here. Amanda and I finally have our teaching schedules finalized. We are now teaching in a place called Lushun, which is a 50 minute drive away from our apartment. It's not as bad as it sounds as we now only teach twice a week for the same pay and have a driver pick us up and take us to work. The school we are at is a satellite school to the main campus where we were originally teaching. The campus is located in an old resort hotel right on the beach. It's really a beautiful place, but kind of isolated, and the student's definately don't have much to do there. So we are doing our best to be a light to them there. We've only had class there 2 days so far, but the students are good and it should be quite an experience.
The town of Lushun has some military sites so it has limited access to foreigners, so it's kind of cool that we have "special" permission to go to this place. There is a BIGGER plan for everything! already have had some good conversations in my classes. looking forward to more. We are starting our first holiday here this week, National Day, and hope to do a bit of sightseeing. one week off! Amanda's birthday was today and we had a good time. Went to a nearby Ocean Park where we watched a dolphin show, saw some amazing fish (kind of like Monterey bay aquarium), saw some pretty big sharks, and then went to a great German Brew House. Sausages and beer! not bad. really nice place. found a DQ and bought an ice cream birthday cake for Amanda, candles and all, and celbrated her 22nd birthday! Finished the day off watching the season premiere of THE OFFICE> pretty good.. PAM AND JIM>>> finally.
anyway, just wanted to do a quick update and let everyone know we are doing well and miss you all. Will post some pics soon. Can also check our facebook or myspace pages for some pics. thanks for thinking of us and keeping us in your prayers.
oh. and I will do another post about the crazy singing thing we did last nite.

migs in the morning

So the school we work at and our apartment are right next door to Dalian Airport. So, we can watch, and hear (especially hear) large 747's take off throughout the day. luckily they don't start until the morning and don't go through the night. occasionally some louder and faster flying machines take off from our airport. you may be familiar with the Russian Migs. They are incredibly loud and actually, a little scary. feels like we're in a war zone everytime they take off. in fact, the first time we heard them was a day after we'd arrived, and amanda screamed "we're under attack!!!" half jokingly. now we're used to it, but it is still a bit ominous and coldwarish. anyway, the video below is one i took on my birthday as we were about to enter a great SIchuan Style Restaurant for my birthday.

BORN IN THE U.S.A!!!!!!

You may recognize a few of these iconic American staples. Even the ol' Governator made his way into Dalian, China. (the pics about a block away on the wall of a gym! awesome. Ahh-nold is ahhhsome.) Can you imagine him speaking Chinese?:) KFC, McD's and Wal-Mart/WarMar, are about a 15 minute bus ride away. Always a safety net when sick of Chinese food or Chinese stores, or......china.. I think I already said it, but McD's was bomb. KFC was okay, about like U.S. A little cheaper. Wal-Mart is very similar, only the food section is much different, and, things are a lot cheaper. The city is really enjoyable with lots and lots of stores. Learning how to bargain. key. The "ert of pastry" is great. We see a lot of Chinglish and I am trying to take pics of them all.

Today was our first day of teaching! Amanda was up to the block first, 8 am class. Reports indicate it went well and her students were great. 18 students. 5 classes a week, once a day. I went last, at 3:15. Had to sweat it out all day. 26 students, not bad. Did some introductions, we have Chinese Teacher assistants who can speak English to help us. Which was a life saver. No A/C in the room, 6th floor of that massive building I posted a pic of earlier, so you're really sweating it out. Plus, the teacher stands up on a platform so you're really the focal point. My student's English levels varied, okay at best. They definately read and write better than they speak. All of them were really nice and payed attention, respectful. Only four guys in the class though. yikes. survived though. It's going to be tough to bring their English levels up, but we are hoping for the best.

If you have any questions for us, please just post them to our blog or email. You can also find us on MSN messenger, amandadelgado2@hotmail.com, dannyboypoly@hotmail.com. More updates soon, thanks for your prayers.

birfday in china

well. i turned 24 twice this week, once in china and once in the u.s. and i enjoyed both of them. our boss at the school and the rest of the staff took us out to.....try and guess..... CHINESE FOOD for my birthday! (we are tiring of the food already, even though it is really good.) you try eating Chinese food everyday for a week. or even a few days. anyway. the celebration was good, had some cake, some beer, and some super strong Chinese "wine". 52 proof. still feeling it. then we went downtown to a bar, kind of like downtown brew for you SLO folk. had a good time there and then moved on to CLub Love. craziness. have you ever seen a dance club in the movies that's all crazy with lights and smoke and loud music and people dancing everywhere.. we went there. overall, quite an interesting birthday party for me. considering my last birthday was spent in Tuolumne, having dinner with my family. they like R&B music here, and some techno. i was hoping for some beatles. it was a little surreal hearing a remix of "california dreaming" at the club. saw some more white folks though! a couple crazy russian boxers, some canadians, and our friend maria snow from australia. meeting a lot of great people. everyone is very friendly and helpful, much less staring at the clubs.
start teaching tuesday. just got our schedules. 1 and 1/2 hours of teaching a day. rough workload so far:) we'll see. ohhh, and in china things are always last minute and a bit disorganized. so we found out things a few minutes or so before we have to do them. such as, "by the way, be ready to teach a quick lesson in front of the guy in charge of hiring you and the rest of the staff in an hour, mmk." seriously. "ohhh, and get ready to sing a song....in Chinese.....at the school's 50th anniversary celebration.......in front of 20,000 students...." yep. so that's all i've got for now. stay tuned.
phrase of the day; duo shao qian- how much?

Alive. Well. In China

Hello again friends and family. Sorry it's taken so long to let you know we are alive and well. Just got internet in the apartment this morning...yippee. We have been having a really good time here and have had tons of great experiences already.

We arrived in Dalian after transferring from Beijing on Friday night. Completely skipped over Thursday when we crossed the Pacific, and we are now 15 hours ahead of West Coast time. So if you want to call or Skype us, keep that in mind. (skype name is daliandaniel). Pretty crazy dropping out of the sky into a completely different culture where you don't speak the language and can't read a thing. We were saved at the airport by our interpreter/guide Harry and taken to the college that night. Stayed in the College Hotel "suite" until Tuesday. The campus here is pretty nice. Some massive buildings that remind me of Cal Poly. THis pic here is the main student building.

The city here is very large, goes on forever. Thought there were 2 million people before we came, but found out it's 5 million. As if we can tell the difference. All we know is there are a lot of Chinese people, and very few white people. Didn't see another white person in fact until probably Sunday, and that was downtown. None where we live accept 2 other foreign teachers from New Zealand and Australia. Have toured the city a bit so far, and it is fascinating. Sort of San Franciscoish with a little Portland here and there. Some beautiful tree lined streets and a huge green park near the beach (largest green square in China apparently). The beach was nice, water wasn't too bad, but no waves as we are in a bay.

We live about 15 minute taxi (side note: taxi drivers here are insane. Stop lights, lane markers, direction signs, are viewed at as mere options/suggestions with the pedestrians serving as bright orange cones to avoid by centimeters as they swerve around them in the street) or bus ride from the main downtown. And discovered today we can take the bus downtown for 1 yuan, which is about 15 cents. Everything here has been insanely cheap. We will go out to eat and get lots and lots of amazing food at little hole in the wall restaurants for about 3 U.S. $ each, or less. That's with a beer. Bought some great shoes for $10, and that was in a mall. Lots of massive malls here, that are just like the U.S. only we can't read anything except the occasional GUCCI or ADIDAS. Pretty westernized city. Hoping to do some travelling soon to see some of the more ancient regions of China. Possible Great Wall trip next month. we shall see.

I'll try to keep these things briefer, but there is a lot that has happened. Every day we learn so much and experience so many new things it feels like we've been here for months sometimes. AManda and I are still kind of feeling like this is vacation, but I'm sure that will fade soon as we start teaching our students on Tuesday! should be fun. Trying hard to pick up on a few key survival phrases and words. Very hard language so far. But we have managed to get food, shelter, and water, so we are surviving. Hoping to stumble upon an "essentials kit" soon. haha. For those of you still reading and who know Brian Regan. Key phrases include, how much? duo shao qian? that's too expensive. tai guila. Waiter/waitress- fuyan. Check please- Mei dan. Numbers and hand signals for 1-10. Do you speak English? Ni hue shua Enguen ma? and I don't know- basically I can't speak English, stop staring at me, I'm an idiot- ting bu dong.
I get a lot of stares. AManda can pass as Asian almost, and insn't quite so conspicuous. But I don't have a chance of blending in. It's not so much that I'm tall, there are quite a few tall Asians.
Anyway, having a great time. Had McDonalds. Went to Wal-Mart. did all the American stuff. Have now retreated to our pretty darn nice apartment which we share w/ the Ostinis. More posts to come soon. For now, keep us in prayers. LOVE- Dan and Amanda
p.s. THe two above pics are from downtown Xinghai Square, right near the ocean.

China!

Hello and nihao friends and family....and creepy internet stalkers. Well, as you may know we are off to Dalian, China for 10 months to teach English at a University. We are very excited and a bit nervous, but look forward to an amazing experience. Our friends the Ostinis will be joining us which is great! We hope to keep this blog updated with news, pictures, thoughts, etc. so please feel free to check it periodically if you would like to see how we are doing. Please stay in touch through email or this blog. We've never done a blog before so any tips would be great. Thanks!!!! Zai Jien. or something.