I went on a little bike ride and adventurously ran into a bunch of cool stuff. 1) Weihai Sports Complex which houses a track. Some vendors rent space beneath the beachers and run shops in the arena. Imagine SBC Park but with furniture stores beneath the bleachers. 2) Weihai Community Bank Gym. There was what looked to be a high school wrestling match going on. Same thing as in the U.S., just shouting and cheering in Mandarin. 3) Very scary coal power plant.  You can basically walk into the complex, but I didn’t out of fear of death by pollution. 4) Harbing Institute of Technology, another univeristy in weihai.

I bumped into some of our students going to dinner, decided to join.  In the area on campus where we got food, there is a small laundry shop called the Gagamel Washeteria.  They machine wash clothes for a small fee, maybe 1 burrito per load.  They’re also the only place I’ve seen that has diet coke, or “coke light” in China.  You get a free diet coke with every 2 loads.  One of the owners, a guy my age speaks a bit of English.  After hanging out for a while and trying to make do with my limited knowledge of Mandarin and his limited knowledge of English, 6 of them invited another photographer and me out to shabu shabu (in Japanese).  We had a great dinner with goose, lamb, duck wings, chicken feet, and other goodness, cooked at the table in a really good broth.  Now we owe them big time.

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High school wrestling match,Weihai, China.

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Making the equivalent of a Chinese pita wrap.