C - an unusual Chinese New Year celebration

Who would've guessed that a great Italian meal could be had in Dalian, even during the height of Chinese New Year? We've been eating pretty sparsely at home, with peanut butter, oatmeal, and yogurt being our staples, but last night had a feast at a restaurant called Olive Garden (not the Olive Garden, however.) I had discovered through Dalian XPat that this restaurant was open all week despite it being Chinese New Year, and talked D into going there over the Paulaner Brauhaus.

Our Danish friends were interested but the lady of the house was ill, so just one of them, our retired professor friend, came along. Nearly the first thing he said to us was "I'm so glad you came back!" (Apparently some of the other teachers have abandoned ship over the holidays). But the real bombshell came next -- he said "You've scored yourselves a free dinner!" and then explained "I found out an hour ago that I'm going to be a grandfather!" He was all smiles and had obviously been crying a few happy tears not long before. So we were of course elated for him, and enjoyed celebrating the great news with food and wine and the non-stop fireworks of Chinese New Year.

The food was good indeed -- our friend had an Australian steak that was done perfectly to his liking, D had a margherita pizza that smelled wonderful, and I had a salmon cream penne pasta dish that was so good that I had the leftovers for breakfast.

My movie binge has kicked off again. We bought five DVDs at the grocery store on Saturday: Casino Royale, Borat, Crank, Pan's Labyrinth, and The Last King of Scotland (all illegally copied, of course).

So our Chinese New Year has consisted of 1. lots of sleep, 2. lots of movies, and 3. Italian food. But hey, I'm trying:















"福" essentially means that we wish the best for all of you in the coming year. And we do!