Wednesday 6th May 2009

A few of us went to the IT mall near Wal mart to do research. Apparently every shop we went to they could recognize immediately that we were students from Singapore doing research. Well, after which we went to explore places. We walked for hours and passed by many places.

One of the places which we happened to pass by and explore was the wet market. The market was almost empty by then because it was near to evening. Stall vendors were busy clearing their stalls and cleaning up. We were very disgusted at one particular point of time because just before we could cross the path to get out of the wet market… a pail of flirty water was being splashed over the floor. The market’s smell was lest bearable and the floor then was filled with unwanted vegetables and meat. A dead rat was spotted amongst all those rubbish on the ground. We totally freaked out as we tip-toed or use our best possible way to carefully walk across the road. The condition was far worse than Singapore’s in terms of hygiene level. The rat could have been crawling around the stall before it died. I just feel that whatever we eat here, we got to be really careful because you never know if the raw food has been contaminated. It could have been on the ground being trampled on before it was actually sold to be cooked. Who knows?

Well, after having dinner, we went to the park nearby and it was bustling with life! There were elderly dancing in pairs to the melody of the songs and youngsters playing sports like rollerblade, chapteh and many more. Ivan bought a chapteh and we started playing. We were beginners so it was no surprise that we did not play well. (My shoe even flew when I tried to kick the chapteh!) It was so embarrassing! Anyway, I was amazed by how youngsters/strangers just join in the circle to play the game with us. We were obviously way more shy as we could not play well. Furthermore, to us, it was the impression which came first. After failing for a few times, we pulled out. That was how shy we were. It was a Singaporean teenager thing I guess. We tend to shy away when we are not good at a particular thing. Perhaps if we had more courage, we would have mastered the skill by now! ;p In anyway, we are still learning the skill..

It was a fruitful day on the whole as we had fun experiencing the different types of places and people of Dalian.