Dalian update: round-up

It was a very busy week at university with loads of new words/characters that had to be learnt. We also need to prepare for a "speech contest" that will take place within the next two weeks. Each student has to prepare a speech and deliver it in front of a crowd at the university library auditorium. The student with the best Chinese pronounciation wins...

In my spare time I have focussed nearly exclusively on my cycling training this week. It was pouring down on Easter Monday, aka Tomb Sweeping Day, so I got on the bike Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. On Tuesday I had my longest session to date, 3h30', and ended up on the other side of the Liadong peninsula. Call it the west coast. I saw a sign that says Daheishi, and it looks like they are building a few tourist resorts there. Indeed, the area is wunderful. I cycled on the brand new and nearly car-free west coast version of Binhai Lu, and had breathtaking panoramas of the Bohai Sea and several small islands. I might be able to connect that route with Daheishan, the mountain I went hiking on last week. That would be a perfect granfondo preparation! Thursday I did interval on the Dalian coastal route and yesterday a relaxed discovery ride with average result this time.

Last night I went to Dave's Bar (on Friday's there's always a live band), and I met up with Yannis, a young German teaching English here for a semester. He was telling me about his taekwondo days a few years back, and made me aware of a truly spectacular youtube clip, featuring the Afghan Kung Fu master Wahidullah Shafiq in a contest against a black belt taekwondo fighter.

Check it out: Wahidullah Shafiq
Also check out this unbelievable kick in a championship contest:

Yannis also told me about his brother, who used to do boxing training in Germany. He claims his brother once sparred with former world super middleweight champion Sven Ottke and... knocked the champ down! If that is true it would be highly remarkable, as Ottke retired undefeated as a professional boxer.

Regardless what time I go to bed at night, I'm always awake by 8 a.m. I do force myself to catch myself some more sleep, but by 10 I'm really up and about. This morning I decided to book a flight for next weekend to Nanjing, the former capital of China during the Ming Dynasty. Flights cost 100 euro now, a good deal before the tourist season kicks off I reckon. My Canadian flatmate, meanwhile, has left for Dandong just now. Dandong is the border with North Korea and a city of one million inhabitants on its own. Joel will spend an entire week there meeting friends. He has visited the place before, as already reported on this blog a few weeks ago, and every time he talks about it there is yet another amazing story. There are several North Korean bars & karaoke clubs in Dandong, with waiters and waitresses from the DPRK working there. These have indeed been allowed to work across the border but are, of course, monitored very carefully by North Korean authorities. As one can imagine, the temptation to escape must be irresistible for these people on occasion. Last year, one waitress did collect all her courage and hightailed it. Sadly, Kim Jong Il's secret forces in China tracked her down, trapped her and....shot her. Her closest relatives in the homeland suffered the same fate. Textbook Russian mafya style. Don't mess with Kim, let that be clear.