Inflatable Rainbows (or: cellllebrate good times!)

Sooo I was gone for a while. I was writing my senior honors thesis and it pretty much ate my soul. There was a rough patch there where I didn't even think I was going to finish it (nor did my professors, great motivation there), and therefore not graduate with honors.

Yeah, April was a long, sleepless month.

But I'm back! I can't promise I'll be around for long- this month is crazy full of graduation prep, including finals and senior week, but at least MY THESIS IS OVER. Nearly. I defend it tomorrow!

Hey, all that aside, here's a colorful picture of some inflatable rainbows outside Xinghai Square in Dalian. September 2008, during a visit from my mom.

So...Celllllebrate good times, COME ON!

So much for beach towels

Super tentage to shade the Chinese from the sun. Part of that whole, "white is beautiful, tan is not" culture. Xinghai Square, September 2008.

National Day 08

There was a giant hoopla this year as the CPC celebrated their 60th anniversary, and you'd better believe China bloggers tweeted the hell out of it.

I happened to be in Beijing on National Day last year (not by choice- it was the last leg of our vacation and we were catching the train back to Dalian that night) and while everyone was certainly filled with China love, it was to no extent the giant pain-in-the-ass military show and parade it was this year.

Case in point: I remember being most excited by the crowds in Wangfujing and this 2008 shrubbery.

Photo of the Day: Children's Park

A relaxing park in Dalian close to Dawai. Not sure how or why, but it so happened that I only ever visited this park once every season. This meant I saw the transformations from winter, when I arrived, through spring and summer to fall, when this picture was taken.

Fall

Just a quick post since I'm packing to leave soon. Fall has hit, and amazingly Dalian's weather seemed to change instantaneously. One day it was humid and next day, it's windy and everyone's breaking out the jumpers. It also keeps alternating between raining and cloudy to extremely beautiful clear blue skies every other day. My mother just came to visit for the last three days and she caught two rainy days and one sunny day, though even on the cloudy day you could see how gorgeous the Dalian seaside is.

I've been in a ridiculously good mood today; I skipped class to drop mom off at the airport; then I went back to school to pick up my passport. I've got my residency permit all sorted out! Even though I had to rent a room in the dorms to pretend I was living there in order to get the new permit. (50 USD total for 8 nights in a room I never even stepped foot in...) Then I went to lunch at Amici's, a popular western food coffee shop, then F and I sat at the Xinghai beach for a good hour and a half just watching people, listening to the waves crashing and laying in the sun. Now I'm packing for my October Holiday trip -with BCA again -we're going to Western China for a week! Well, tomorrow will be spent in Beijing because of the way the train and flight schedules worked out, but then we'll go to Western China. Silk Road, Yellow River, some desert, Inner Mongolia...that whole area. I'm super excited...plus when I return, I still have a full six days off of school!