Dalian update: Binhai Lu & 2046

Yesterday after lunch I went on my first interval training session of 2010 on Binhai Lu, the route along the coast. That road goes constantly up and down and hasn't got a metre of flat bits for some 30 kilometres. Very often the gradient exceeds 10%. The weather was fine yesterday with limited wind. In order to get on Binhai Lu, I need to follow the main road that leads to the city centre for a while, until Xinghai Square (photo), a huge oval square with a circumference of just over 2 kilometres and little car traffic. It is the early morning meeting point for Dalian cyclists on weekdays as of April. That oval is actually flat and will be very useful in the upcoming months for more specific cycling training sessions!

Yesterday's ride went fine, I have clearly regained some explosiveness already since I started training now nearly a month ago. I was tired at the end of the 2 hour 10 minutes stint, but rather satisified with how it went. Afterwards, I paid my registration fee for the Oetztaler Radmarathon in Austria in August (more on that in a few days), so we have an unmistakeable training target now!

Last night Henry - the English guy in my class - and myself were invited to join the French group to the birthday event of our classmate Krystel (known around here as Ke Li) at the 2046 nightclub. I was curious whether the name of the club had anything to do with the Wong Kar Wai movie '2046', starring Tony Leung, Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li, but it turned out it had not. A nice place, though, more enjoyable than the other big two in town: Suzy Wong and Free Club. My classmate and her friends apparently go there a few times per week... In fact, yesterday night there was a special event at 2046 organised by the Alliance Francaise, the French community in Dalian. Stage performances by two rappers who turned out to be Belgian. Coming from la Wallonie of course. Many French expats and students were present, as well as plenty of local Chinese and Jim Beam.

Today was not a very productive day. Wednesdays are in any case tough because it is the only day on which we still have an afternoon class, and as mentioned in previous blog posts, you cannot leave it there for the day. For western students like me it remains a necessity to spend a few hours working on the Chinese characters after classes. As of next month or so, it should be feasible to focus a bit less on the writing and reading, and more on regular conversation. One-to-one tutorials are recommended for this purpose. Usually you make an exchange arrangement with a Chinese student who wishes to improve his English. I have already found someone who claims to be keen on learning some Dutch. Let's see in a couple of weeks..