Since I was scheduled to go on a business trip to Beijing right after the Marine Day long weekend in July, I contacted a professor at a university in Dalian whom I had met at a conference held in Macau in April. They replied, "When are you coming to Dalian?" so I arrived in the city a little early during the long weekend. I know many of our readers prefer organized tours when traveling, but I highly recommend "jumping on a bus running through the city." As long as you have the hotel's business card and some local currency, even if you get off the bus and get lost...

I attended the 21st Annual Conference of the Japan Association for Language Policy (JALP), which was held at Kwansei Gakuin University from Saturday, June 8 to Sunday, June 9, 2019. This time, I will secretly introduce some behind-the-scenes episodes from that conference! (If you haven't seen Part 1: Conference Edition yet, check it out here ⇒ I attended the 21st Annual Conference of the Japan Association for Language Policy (JALP) Part 1) Now, first of all, how did I prepare for participating in this research conference...