Bloggin Shore is Silly

Never thought I would have one of these, but I find that I have too many pictures to email them to everyone who asked and show fully what all is going on, so here I am. Anyway, the purpose of this, as one might guess, is to document thoughts, etc. on my travels. I wont subject you to too many thoughts, I promise.

Im spending the next three and a half months in China, traveling around and eating weird stuff. There wont be many words here but instead, lots of pictures. I dont speak hardly a lick of Chinese, but Im trying to learn. It sure is hard.

Im living right now in Dalian, which is a fairly new city on the tip of the eastern peninsula. If you look at a map, that little hook thing on the east coast is it. Dalian is on the end. Its nice enough here- right on the sea.

Here's the view from my room.

This is a random Bavarian castle that was built fairly recently. No one lives there. They take fancy wedding pictures on the steps all the time. You can see the sea beyond that.

They light the castle up at night.

Sometimes the sky here is blue, sometimes its just a big sea of grey.
Heres me in one of the squares in Dalian on a grey day.

We buy most of our produce at the market. Theres a market for everything...

This fiercely sleeping black cat was guarding the peppers.

I go to cooking class with my pop.

last week we made braised eggplant and hot and sour soup. She uses a giant cleaver to chop everything. There are no ovens here. Everything is two burners and a wok.

Wish I could make this...its called 'bing' and its ridiculously delicious. Theres spicy chili oil, seseme seeds and green onions on it and its oily and hot and...garrbbll....drool



this is (part) of (one of) the fabric market(s). You can find anything here you want, and have anything you want custom made for you.





calligraphy shop, brushes of all sizes, paper, ink, chops, all sorts of neat doodads.

this guy handmakes cleavers out of slabs of steel and grinds them down to a razor edge. Dad bought a cleaver. It was 3$.

Heres our tea guy. We're having fabulous fresh oolong. I had to pee so bad after this.

heres some teapots...he's seasoning them with tea for customers. You have different teapots for each kind of tea.

We bought a boat load of tea.

Mom says hi.

I sure miss cheese. And Ann Arbor. But China is treating me well...the people are nice, the food is fabulous, and theres always something going on. Life is rarely dull.

There are other non-chinese people here. Dalian is small enough that if we run into them, we probably know them. They assure me that i wont want to eat chinese food in a few months. LIES. Anyway, if youre reading this, you probably found it because i wanted you to.

I miss you.