Furama Hotel Dalian joins World Hotels
The Furama has joined World Hotels as a new ‘Deluxe Collection affiliate’, whatever that means. I like the Furama a lot, and while I haven’t stayed in all the hotels in Dalian (not by a long shot), it seems to be among the best. A friend of mine who stays in the Shanggrila (which used to be widely believed to be the best) says that their service and quality is on the downslide.
Person of the Year move Dalian to tears
“Totally ten local people (or group) were granted the honor of the “Civilized Touch” Person of the Year 2009 in the coastal city of Dalian, January 14, 2010.” Forget the ‘Civilized Touch’, I want to see who won the ‘uncivilized touch’ award. That would be far more entertaining. Forget the ‘Civilized Touch’, I want to see who won the ‘uncivilized touch’ award. That would be far more entertaining. Read the rest of this entry »
Cold freezes sea-farmers’ income
“Fan Xinyuan, a resident of Jinzhou district, north of Dalian, Liaoning province, who raised 66.7 hectares of sea cucumber, told China Daily that if the temperature didn’t rise and ice continues to block the sea, there will be no sea cucumbers left.”
I hate sea cucumber. Good riddance…
Drowned sailors honoured
“North Korea has posthumously honoured sailors for rescuing portraits of the former and current leader from their sinking ship even as they were drowning, Pyongyang’s official media said on Friday.”
I don’t remember reading this story before, but that’s pretty hardcare.
AmCham-China Launches Dalian Chapter
“The American Chamber of Commerce in the People’s Republic of China (AmCham-China) today launched its third regional chapter nationwide, in Dalian, Liaoning Province. At the launch, Dalian Vice Mayor Dai Yuling and US Consul General for Shenyang Stephen Wickman were in attendance and made remarks welcoming the chamber’s expansion.”
Shopping meets tourism in Dalian
“Dalian residents see Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong as among their favoured travel destinations, with shopping at the top of the agenda. Conversely, shopping tours have become lucrative streams of sales for travel agents, with end-of-year and holiday destination offers snapped up.”
UPDATE: It looks as though some spam somehow got into my RSS feed when this post first went out. Apologies to anyone who had to put up with that. I believe the problem has been solved.
Just a quick note to remind those of you in Dalian that Alex has made some pretty impressive changes to DalianDalian.com over the past year or so. I do want to point out (because some of you might not be aware) that the site does have a blogging platform. So if you’d like to write your own travelogues while living in or visiting Dalian, you can do so for free on DalianDalian’s blog platform.
Even if you keep a Dalian-related blog on another platform (i.e. Blogger, Wordpress, etc) you can use the aggregation feature to have your posts imported. Hopefully it’ll bring you a little more exposure.
I haven’t been very involved with the project lately — seeing as how I’ve moved to Japan an’ all — but Alex is doing more than ok. On a google search for Dalian, the site currently outranks longer-established sites like DalianXpat, Runsky (the local English news site), and even the Dalian municipal government’s website. That’s pretty cool, considering that all of those sites are businesses, and we were just three dudes with some extra time on our hands.
Anyway, drop on over to DalianDalian if you get a chance. If you’re an English speaker in Dalian, it’s the best resource at your disposal.
First it was Xianzai.com who was stealing our Dalian content and reprinting it verbatim on their website.
Now it’s ChinaExpat.com. I was a little disappointed to see that, especially since I had written a pretty hefty Dalian piece for them a while back. Maybe they figured that if I did one piece pro-bono, that I wouldn’t mind if they lifted all the stuff I’d written about Dalian? I don’t know… They do link to DalianDalian.com on one of their pages, but I really don’t think that’s gonna cut it on their listings pages. Especially considering that when users search for a Dalian bar or restaurant on Google, ChinaExpat will be right up there in the rankings thanks to the content they lifted (word-for-word) from us.
UPDATE: This is especially mind-boggling considering that ChinaExpat has their content stolen a while back, and made quitea bitover noise over it. I suspect this is a case of the site owners not knowing what hired writers are doing… But Jesus, c’mon people.
Anyway ChinaExpat, you can use my stuff. Just be clear to attribute where it came from.
Also you’ve stole some of DalianXpat’s content too, so be sure to get in contact with them too.
Some examples:
Original Page: http://www.daliandalian.com/listings/dalian-bavarian-beer-house
Stolen content: http://www.chinaexpat.com/dalian-bavarian-beer-house.htm
Original Page: http://www.daliandalian.com/listings/brooklyn-bar-and-restaurant
Stolen content: http://www.chinaexpat.com/brooklyn-bar-and-restaurant.htm
Original Page: http://www.daliandalian.com/listings/chu-shin-ya
Stolen Content: http://www.chinaexpat.com/chu-shin-ya.htm
Yeah, you heard me. A gaelic football team in China. If you don’t know what gaelic/Irish football is, that doesn’t really matter so much. Just check it out below in the video. Long story short, there’s a team here in Dalian, China — not a likely place to find that brand of football either. The Dalian Wolfhounds, as they’re called, have quite a few Chinese starters this year, more than any other team I’m told. That’s great to see. It’s almost like the Jamaican bobsled team, in a way — only without the bobsled and stuff.
They’ve been training every week and drinking their milk, and fund-raising as well, in the hopes of traveling to Malaysia for the All-Asia Games on October 11th and 12th. Read more about that here, on their blog. But they could use your help. If you have a paypal account, it’d be much appreciated if you send a modest donation. No amount is too small.
Update 9/28: Mikey Farrelly, coach of the Wolfhounds, has just announced that unfortunately they didn’t reach their fund-raising target, and will not be able to make the trip to Malaysia. However, your donations are still welcome, as they will continue fund-raising for the club — and according to Mikey, they are “going to hit next year’s China Games like a ton of bricks!”
Me and some friends have been toying with the idea of making a Dalian podcast/videocast. It’s kind of a neat idea, because nobody in this city has really done that before. We did record a short run-through the other day, and I should have our first episode online shortly. A rough cut, but should be ok. I think there’s a big vacuum to be filled in Dalian though. The only significant web presence that exists is a somewhat disharmonious forum, and DalianDalian.com – our modest attempt at a city guide which we’ve thrown together in our spare time. If anyone out there has any suggestions, drop me a line. It’s good to see sites like Dalianstuff.com springing up, and I hope we see more of them in the future.
I recently got a new camera, and I’m trying to put more videos on our site. Like if I go to a restaurant, I’ll take a short video to show people what it looks like and how to get there. I recently recorded a video the Dalian Wolfhounds Trivia Night as well, so if you haven’t come out to participate yet, have a look and see if it strikes your fancy.
But essentially DalianDalian is non-profit, do-what-we-can-when-we-can, share-all-the-info-we-know kinda website. There is a forum for those who like forums. But the meat and potatos of the site is the listings section. We don’t ask for any sponsors, money or volunteers. We also have a blog platform, where you can start your own weblog as well. Alex has done a really great job.
In other news, I tried my hand at archery yesterday and that was pretty good fun. And here’s the video:
