Xi'an Square

Yesterday after my Chinese class, I went out with some of the other students. Two of the guys were leaving that evening to travel around China a bit (Beijing, Qingdao, Tenjin) before going back home to Korea. A lot of the students here are Japanese, actually, so we ended up going to a Japanese restaurant, which everyone agreed made great food.
After that, one of the Japanese guys, NT, joined me and we met up with J and two of her friends at the Xi'an Square shopping district. Dalian has a lot of public squares, and many of them are the center of shopping districts, so the city is pretty much built around that structure. Xi'an Square is not too far from J's place, so we've been there a few times.
We stopped at Uniqlo, a Japanese clothing store (maybe similar to the Gap?) which is currently pretty popular in China, so that my friend NT could buy some warmer undershirts. Then J and her friends went to the kids toys and book shops. NT has been studying Chinese for a bit over a year, and has become a pretty good speaker, but J's friend was quizzing us on a few things in the kids books, like the names of fruits and vegetables in Chinese.
After that, we had dinner in the shopping center, everyone getting different dishes and trying everything. Everyone agreed that the one J's friend picked out, a spicy Shichuan noodle dish, was the best tasting. We washed it all down with some Qingdao/Tsingtao beers and I had a chance to practice my Chinese some more.