Bangkok & Dalian

Day 15 – Bangkok (Nicky)

Got in Bangkok by nine this morning after a HORRIBLE breakfast of fried eggs…ugh!! Felt a little tired after the night train but really not too bad. It was pretty sad saying goodbye to the rest of the group…but this was softened by the anticipation of a hot shower, good breakfast and luxury of the Royal Orchid Sheraton.

We cleaned up, ate a second great breakfast and then off to the weekend market to make some last purchases before flying out of Thailand tomorrow.

We treated ourselves to a great massage in the hotel, fantastic western supper and then early to bed as we have a 4:30 am start tomorrow!!

Day 16 – Bangkok - Dalian (Colin)

Another early start – up at 4:30am and off to the airport at 5:00am to catch our flights to Guangzohu then on to Dalian to meet Cameron. Got the hockey results in Guangzohu and very disappointed to hear the Canucks have lost yet another playoff game to Chicago, so the series is tied 3-3 after the Canucks were originally up by 3. We called Katie while in Bangkok and it was good to hear all is well with her and the animals back in Kelowna.

The two flights today flew by as we both slept very soundly on each of them – only waking up when they brought food round!! It was LOVELY to see Cameron who met us at the airport and deftly instructed the cab driver where to take us in mandarin.

We arrived at the Maple Leaf Campus and were amazed by the size of the school and how modern the buildings are. Cameron’s apartment is good, interestingly he has a washing machine in his shower!!We went to Susan’s pizza for a quick supper.

So far China is not at all like we imagined – Dalian is really modern with massive development (30% increase in development per year!!!). 35 billion dollars spent on their transit system in 3 years!! There are lots of high rises, wide impressive streets. The school is situated in a Jin Shi Tan national holiday resort, the first state sponsored development resort so there are lots of apartments being built.

Day 17 - Jin Shi Tan (Nicky)

Today Cameron was teaching so we decided to go and explore the local area. We wandered down to the beach area and watched lots of small boats full of seaweed being unloaded. They were getting the beach area ready for the national holiday which starts next week. This involved painting the bridge railing (which we discovered a little late!!) and emptying sand bags on the beach!

We met Cameron for lunch and then decided to explore the rock garden. They had unearthed some incredible rocks when excavating and had turned the area into a garden. It was very impressive. We are very amused to discover that we are novelties here – lots of tourists stare at my blonde hair and groups want to get their photos taken with us, in a multitude of poses!!

We also hiked to the geological area. This proved to be much further out than we had anticipated but was well worth it. It was very nicely set up with pathways and signage to show you what the formations were. The rocks had names like the Arabian castle, dinosaur eats sea, Beethoven’s face etc. The trail was 1.7km long and then we took a little bus back to the start. However….we then discovered that the buses stopped running at 4p.m and there were no taxies to be had…groaning we started on the 6km hike back. Luckily for us at that moment a motorbike taxi pulled up and agreed to take both of us. Even more luckily for us, Cameron had very thoughtfully asked one of his trustworthy students to write out the names of the local places in Chinese script…so we whipped that out and he immediately understood where we wanted to go…so we travelled in style 3 on a motorbike back to the school!!

In the evening we took the Chinway ( train) into Kai Fa Qu for dinner, a look at the shops. We met Kristen (Chelsea’s sister) and a friend for Japanese food then rushed to catch the school bus home at 8:30pm. It was a great day.