Well, I finally made it to Dandong. I rolled into town about 6:30 last night on a crowded bus (they’re always crowded) from Dalian. I’m glad I waited a week and came alone, actually. I had planned to come last weekend with two Dalian friends, but both canceled at the last minute so I held off until now. Coming alone, I could crash on a friend’s couch up here, hang out with some local foreigners and just generally get a bit deeper into things than I otherwise would.

I met Keith (the friend with the couch) at his school here and I immediately became to local celebrity. It’s a common enough thing over here, a new foreigner is a curiosity, and I’ve been taking a lot of photos with new Dandong friends. Kids swarmed me at the school, everyone asking the usual questions: What is your name? Where are you from? Are you the new teacher here? I had fun with it, and their English was better than most of my college students, especially a nine-year-old named Genius.

Today has been all over. I rode out to the ferry port with two friends in the morning. In a minute I’m heading over to the Museum to Commemorate US Aggression and the Yalu River tour. A new Chinese friend, Wayne, offered to drive me all over town.

I’m dropping in on an English Corner tonight, where hopefully I’ll get a chance to chat with some North Korean students. Tomorrow I’m hitting the eastern end of the Great Wall, then it’s another crowded bus back to Dalian.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 11th, 2006 at 12:15 am and is filed under roadside blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.