...with a two year old Chinese boy at Zhongshan Square in Dalian. It started over pigeons. A couple who was leaving the park gave me their bag of pigeon food. Seconds later, I was attacked by pigeons. They were standing on my head, my shoulders, my back. I was screaming and laughing all at the same time. I think that's what hooked him. Along with the 20 or so other Chinese who gathered around to laugh at Anna-Lina and I, the boy started giggling uncontrollably as he watched me try to escape the attack of the pigeons. He followed me around the park for at least an hour, and he blushed when I gave him the pigeon food because I had had enough pigeon scalp massages for the day. Single friends, write this down: the quickest way to a two year old man's heart is to scream and laugh while being attacked by pigeons and give him pigeon food. He'll be yours forever.
We went to another famous park in Dalian, Laodong Park. Here, we saw a Chinese woman walking a cockatoo on a leash...only in China! There was a small ski park within the park, so we took the opportunity to go snow tubing and ice sledding. It was a great way to spend Christmas Eve day! Ski parks in the US would be heavily staffed with protective nets and pads everywhere. Not in China! We were left to ourselves at the snow tubing area, and until Anna-Lina crashed into an unprotected tree, we had a blast! We were clearly the first customers to try out the ice sledding 'ride' (see picture). The ride was basically blocks of ice that had been stacked in such as way as to form a slide. Anna-Lina got stuck in one of the lanes because it was too narrow for our western bottoms. I took the other one and slowly meandered my way down. Definitely not fast enough for me and it was way too cold!
Dalian is famous for its seafood, so we went to a highly recommended seafood restaurant for Christmas Eve dinner. Anna-Lina is standing in front of the restaurant's menu in the picture. Outside of Mom and I's sushi experience in Kyoto, Japan several years ago, I have never had such fresh, delicious and cheap seafood! We had mussels, shrimp and massive prawn/rock shrimp-type animals that were all fantastic, even though we had to deal with the psychological side of seeing our food swimming minutes before we were eating them!
We spent Christmas day mostly sleeping, reading and hibernating in our room. It snowed all Christmas morning, so we didn't want to be out and about in the weather! Also, we were tired because we didn't go to bed until 6 AM. We met some other westerners and decided together to party away our depression on being away from our families and friends on Christmas.
Our last excursion in Dalian was a 4 hour hike along the coast in the freezing cold! There were a few parks along the way and beautiful views of the coast and sea. We entertained the locals with our mock rock show along with some sculptures in Xinghai Park. We also were the subject of many stares as we took off our socks and shoes, rolled up our jeans and drank a beer while standing in the FREEZING Yellow Sea. It took a solid 30 minutes for my feet to warm up again, and I was only in the water for about 45 seconds! It was great to see water again, sit on the beach and watch the world go by. It would have been much better had I not been wearing thermals, jeans, 3 sweaters/jackets, gloves, scarf and a ski hat. Also, it would have been awesome if there hadn't been snow still on the sand!
All in all, it was a great trip and a nice way to survive Christmas away from home. I know that I won't miss another Christmas with my family again. At the end of the day, though, it appears that I'll have to come back home at least by next August so that I can coach the Gators unless Urban decides to come back! No solid plans for New Year's Eve yet, although there are several large parties going on around Beijing.
I hope that 2010 brings you the opportunity to realize your dreams, laugh with a stranger and experience something new. Happy New Year! Talk to you in 2010!
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