Life's a Beach

Zorbing at the Beach in Jinshitan

Lauren

Chris showing off his "skilz" at the beach


In our short time here we have had some good times at the beach. There is a beach near our house, it is about a 10 minute walk. Most of the time we head to Jinshitan, because the beach near our house is rocky. I read somewhere that all of the beaches in our area are naturally rocky. At some point the government of Dalian actually had thousands of truckloads of sand brought in to make the beaches in Jinshitan sandy! If you have images of beautiful white sand beaches…get back on the plane and fly to Hawaii!

Anywhere we go in China we seem to draw attention. The beach is no exception. Chinese people love to take our pictures.. . Some are very subtle about it and will walk up beside you while their friend snaps a picture. Other will actually attempt to communicate with you and throw their arm around you to get a picture. The kids are getting accustomed to this as they are usually the subject of many Chinese photos. When we are at the beach there is usually a small crowd of Chinese people taking pictures of the kids while they play. Rick suggested we start running up to random Chinese people and throw our arms around them and start snapping pictures… because we don’t already stand out here!

The kids have discovered the joy of Zorbing in the ocean. Many of you may wonder what the giant hamster ball thingy in the water is, just as we did when we arrived in China. Thanks to my cousin Christa this thing has a name… it is a Zorb. For about $1.50 per child we can load up the kids and let them roll around in the giant ball on water.