Fast times in Dalian.

Hi, I thought you might like to see who I’ve been hanging around with this semester, It’s been a mixture of foreign teachers, foreign students and just people living in Dalian.

These are the male foreign teachers (minus David). Matt, John and Eric are on main campus while me and Russell (lying down) work on the software campus.

*Matt is giving the v’s but it just means a peace sign in the US.

We had a party at our apartment for Halloween, and then there was a party the night after at my friends bar/cafe.

(left to right, Louis, me, Margaret, Jacqueline, Marianna and David)

(left to right, Louis, Matt, Margaret, Russ, Jacqueline and Marianna)

(left to right, Louis, a little girl and Daniel)

Above is Fan Yu who is the head of our English department and Edward next to her is a work colleague. Below is Wendy, she teaches English with me and Russell on the Software campus and she’s married to Adam who owns the bar/cafe.

Below is Adam, he owns Blackbeans, a cafe during the day and a bar at night, I have been going there regularly since arriving in Dalian.

Bellow from left to right is Emily, Sunny and Cassie. Emily is my Chinese teacher and I do language exchange with Sunny. She is a Chinese teacher who wants to improve her English and I’m an English teacher who wants to improve his Chinese, pretty good arrangement.

This is Emily trying to teach me Chinese while I’m playing with my new Camera. I have been taking Lessons with Emily for around 9 Months now, twice a week. I’ve made a lot of progress with her.

We did laser-tag a few weeks ago, it was really good, the Chinese put the same effort in to laser-tag as we put in to paintballing back home.

I mentioned in another post about how Chinese people love Basketball, well they also love to go to KTV which is like karaoke, but you rent out a whole room for just your group, or just yourself if you want to. Below is Kim, John and Matt.

Matt and Eric really going for it.

One of my friends has just left Dalian, he arrived the same time as me, for his leaving party we all dressed up as him with white caps big noses, black t-shirts and cigarettes behind the ear. Below is the man himself

*Thanks Matt for the Halloween and laser tag pics.

Some Photos from Dalian University of Technology 大连理工大学.

I’m working at Dalian University of Technology (or Li Gong Da Xue) at the moment. I've taken some photos of both the main campus (where I live) and the software campus (where I work).

Every Chinese university needs its centre piece, my last school had its scaled down Tienanmen square, DUT has a big Chairman Mao which you can see towering above everything from outside the campus.

A lot of university and government buildings around China are done in this huge imposing architecture.

This is the stadium which can fit a lot of people in the stands and has a running track, football pitch with adjoining swimming pool, gym and indoor courts.

This is the guesthouse for foreign experts where I lived for my first semester. It is 60 years old which makes it one of the oldest building I’ve seen in China and was apparently used frequently by soviet officials back in communist times.

Students on their way to class.

Students not going to class.

Studying with Mao.

Marks… Set… GO!

The campus is pretty big so you can take one of these three wheel taxis to get from one gate to another. They make a lot of noise but don’t go very fast, a trip will set you back 5yuan (50p).

Software school

I work at the DUT software campus which is out in KaiFaQu. The main campus students call it hei shan jian yu or Black mountain prison because it’s very isolated and mostly boys. The commute isn’t great but its better than living there.

This is the main teaching building.

This is the inside of the teaching building.

My students pretending to do some work.

This is a panoramic picture of my classroom, a lot of the other rooms are very plain and depressing but I thought I’d put some stuff up on the walls of mine.

These photos were taken by John (another foreign teacher). This is the English teachers office, notice how my desk is covered in books to mark and I’m very busy while Russell has nothing and is more than likely doing nothing. He’s probably wasting time on awkwardfamilyphotos.com… again.

Blah blah

This is a test post from my iPod!!

Chinese people love Basketball!!! 中国人爱篮球

Basketball really took off in China after Yao Ming went to the NBA to play for the Houston Rockets. Now most neighbourhoods have basketball courts, I’ve lost count of how many are on the main campus and then there’s more on the software campus. This court is near the south gate, this is the one we usually go to when we have time. These guys were playing for their class in a tournament set up by the university.

Our Apartment Complex

We have been living in our new apartment for about a month now and so far it's been all right, we are right next to the university campus and we use their heating system, it's just come on which is a good thing as it's just starting to turn cold here. These apartments were given to the longer serving professors at the university, that's who we're renting off. The complex if filled with old retired professors and young students who are renting off professors. Our neighbours seem ok, we had a small party on the weekend and no one complained. Keep checking the blog, there's more photos to come...

Pink Buildings

Windows

Our Letter Boxes

Our central heating

New apartment

Me and Russell have recently moved in to a new apartment here are some photos.

Doesn't look too great from the outside.