Home cooking at the home of a colleague

I was invited to the home of a colleague. We made chinese dumplins from scratch and enjoyed the home cooking. This is his 5 yrs old son and he played this musical instrument quite well.

Tiger Beach & Tiger Square

Dalian weather is really unpredictable. After last week snow storm, the weather today was the best I have seen yet. I went to the Ocean Park and the nearby Tiger Square and only able to spend about 3 hours there because of the company kickoff event in the evening. It would take a day to walk around the winding road around beach area. Anyway, these pictures were taken from different spots around the ocean park and the Hutan Port. To get to the Tiger Square, one would be able to ride the lift from the Ocean Park or use a zigzag bridge connected between the two spots.

A heavy snowstorm in Dalian

A heavy snowstorm hit Dalian this week. There was limited Taxi available for 2 days due to the bad weather. I was able to make it to work by walking to Zhongshan Square to catch the bus to the IBM location. Actually the traffic was quite excellent because of the absense of the crazy taxi drivers :-).

Dalian has not had a similar snowstorm in several years and this particular one was a rare one. It lasted 2 and a half days (Lucky me!). But I was prepared this time. I brought enough winter gears this time after the home trip last week -- a heavy jacket with a scarf and a hat knowing that the cold weather in Dalian will continue for at least another month yet.


These are the support staffs at the IBM site. As I was walking back from lunch at IBM campus, they wanted to take a picture with me in the snow for display.

A night in downtown Narita

Today is Feb 15th and I am in Tokyo. That was a short trip home. The weather here is very different than my first trip last month. It was nice and pleasant. The trip home did not seem long enough especially having to travel back to Dalian on the weekend.

Happy 21st Birthday, Timmy! I guess you get to eat home cooking by Granny. I get to enjoy the bowl of Japanese noodle at the Bayoshi Noodle restaurant.



These pictures were taken downtown Narita. On my way to Dalian, I stayed overnight in Narita. I was able to bop around Downtown Narita. This McDonald's restaurant was right outside of the Narita Keisei Train station.

And of course, I got me a cup of late night coffee at the McDonald's nearby the Narita train station before heading back to the Hilton hotel. I can get access to the internet from this McDonald's

The McDonald fast food restaurant

The more expensive restaurant next door to IBM. It's a McDonald. The kids were brought to McDonald for a field trip. Each kid was given a set of clean-room suite before being allowed to walk through the cooking area. After the field trip, each kid was given a cheeseburger. This picture showed a teacher taking the picture of the kids.

Dalian Shipping Building Industries - Newton Crude Carrier

This is Newton. She was built right here in Dalian. She will be based in Singapore. My friend, Rajesh Kumar who is the captain of this crude carrier and he gave me a complete tour as she is in the final phase of the ship building process. Just an amazing process. She is 330meter in length, 55 meters width and could lower herself 25 meter into water when it is in full capacity. I was fortunately to see the complete tour before she sails away on Feb 21st.

Sunday sermon 2/1/2009

Sunday in Dalian is generally quiet. I really miss my Sunday routine in the US -- attending Sunday school at 9:30 am and have fellowship time with class members. Here in Dalian, I get to see the four walls in my apartment. :). Although I plan to find a website to watch the SB XLIII if someone is willing to stream the game to "China". The game is not going to be on until tomorrow morning (Sunday evening in the US) around 7:00am before I go to work.

Also, today is Joel's 17th birthday. Happy BirthDay, Joel!

I went to the Dalian Int'l Christian Fellowship at the nearby Swisshotel with a colleague who have dual citizenships (Chinese and Canadian). It was interesting. I plan to visit a church for the locals very soon to see what it's liked. For now, I think I will listen to the sermon from the 1st Presbyterian Church, Dallas (PCUSA). I'd rather watch the video sermon instead of audio podcast. The sermon that I listened in today was a week old (the Sunday before the Tuesday inauguration. It's an excellent sermon. see the url here

http://www.firstpresdallas.org/index.cfm/PageID/818/index.html