Ooh, our group is not doing so hot at the moment. Half of us are sick (head count right now: Adam and Caroline, Chris, Kellie, and me somewhat). I have some abdominal cramping (constipation? If I could have a really good productive shit, I would probably cry with happines) and general achiness. I also had some chills earlier, and I’ve had some sinus tension. Some of the others have had fever, vomiting, and diarrhea. No one is sure what it is, because only half the group is affected. It might’ve been something with the food, and different immune systems are reacting differently. I think, for myself, my body is freaked out by how much meat and grease I’ve been eating. Back home I eat a lot more starches (bread, pasta… we don’t have rice at all of our meals, Jade said that rice at every meal is more standard in south China) and vegetables and dairy. Here, dairy is rather non-existent and we have meat at every meal. Lukcily we usually have a plate of fruit too, so I try to eat some of that. Still though… this is 不好.
I went to bed really early (around 9:30) and woke up around 6:30. It felt really good to sleep so much (even though today’s the day I got sick) so I think I’ll go to bed even earlier tonight.
Our classes are going well – I wish we were making more progress, but I think they want us to get down several of the practice conversations in the book before we start tons of new material. Our cultural classes are mostly interesting – my favorite so far is painting, which was way fun. I hope we get to take home some of our stuff. Today we had music appreciation, which was… interesting. We learned a song about this famous Chinese story of the Butterfly Lovers, and then in true Chinese fashion, we all took turns singing the song on the Music Appreciation class karaoke set-up. Today was also cooking class (learning how to make dumplings), which I think I would have appreciated had I not been feeling yucky.
Jade had a good idea to go to the (admittedly sad and desolate looking) World Peace Park next to our hotel (the “amusement park” where we rode bikes) to get some ocean breezes. Jade, Chris, Kellie and I sat on the rocky beach for a while, and I have to say it was quite pleasant. The rocks on the beach are really cool – but they’re almost a little too perfect – you have to wonder if they were trucked in or something. I found a cool swirly looking egg shaped rock that I took back with me.
Tomorrow we’re going to some kind of amusement park/possibly combined with an aquarium in Dalian. It will be nice to go into the city – I think we all have a touch of cabin fever. Man, I am going crazy not being able to read any English language newspapers. I’d be so happy if I could find one in Dalian, even if it’s a state published one. If I had brought my laptop, I could read something online, but it’s not the same. The only English language stuff I have to read right now is Huckleberry Finn, and though Twain usually hits the spotm I’m going crazy without my New York Times. Aaaah! At least there’s a decent (state-run) English language channel of CCTV. All the news people have adopted these British accents, which I find amusing. The Chinese BBC? On, and one of the meteorologists is awesome – she isn’t Chinese but a vaguely butch looking Australian (or maybe New Zealander?). I think her name is Jennifer Eden. Awesome. CCTV9 is definitely where it’s at.
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