Tiger Mountain and Five Dragon Hill

Asia » China » Dongbei » Dandong
October 7th 2005

Published: October 10th 2005

Edit Blog Post

Jupe

Train to Dalian

This is the a picture taken from the inside of the train to Dalian.

So we're finally on the train back to Dalian. Unfortunately we have tickets for regular seats instead of sleepers so I will be sleeping sitting up or curled into a ball tonight but soon we'll be back in Dalian.

Yesterday I went to Five Dragon "Hill" (even though the character is "mountain" they call it "hill"). It was a really cool place. Unfortunately I had a cold so I didn't get to climb up to the very top but I did get to climb a very long way and see almost all of the temples and two gardens with all 12 animals for the Chinese calendar years. I got some beautiful pictures. Then Cat and I took another bus to Tiger Mountain. She didn't come with me to the wall but I got to go to my first peice of the Great Wall which is on the border between China and Korea. I met two really sweet South Korean women (about my age) who go to university (yes, that's correct Canadian English) in Beijing. So Yeon spoke little English and kept responding in Chinese and then hemming and hawwing to translate it (although oftentimes I understood already). She is majoring

Yalu Bridge

Here I am standing at the beginning of the Yalu Bridge with North Korea behind me.

in Chinese Medicine. Her friend Yoon En Gun is majoring in journalism and had much better English. They both spoke Korean to each other and then very clear Chinese when they needed to and English to me. Their Chinese was very easy for me to understand. We also met a man who had been living in Japan for a while but was from China. I also met another family who tried talking to me in a heavy Chinese accent and then proceeded to talk about me the rest of the way down the wall. I got some pictures of them in their costumes that they had rented. I then had to use the bathroom (or WC) and the ladies were really funny about it. I waked into the house and towards the restroom and one of the ladies cleared her throat. It took them two minutes to try to figure out how to ask me for 5 mao (1/2 of a kuai, 1 mao=1/16th of a dollar) I should have said I didn't understand them and just go about my business but I gave them the mao. Later Cat and I had a very tiring dinner of Chinese food and

Yalu Bridge

This is the blown up end of the bridge with North Korea behind it.

I passed out after my ... first shower!

Today Cat and I packed and checked out of the hotel, although we left our luggage there for the day. Then we went to the Yalu River (on the border of Korea and China). I decided to spend the 20 kuai to go on the old Yalu bridge that had been bombed by the US in the Korean War. I think there was a lot of it that had been rebuilt because the picture only showed the beams standing and the rest had fallen but it was still interesting. Then Cat and Cherry and I all went shopping. We had a lunch of some really good noodles and bought some food for the train and I bought two new pairs of pants. It was when we got back to the hotel, after saying bye to Cherry, that Cat found out we had bought the wrong tickets. Unfortunately, unlike Indian trains where you can very easily switch classes, Chinese trains are very strict about the four kuai difference between classes and we would have had to pay for all four seats instead of just paying the difference. I'm exhausted now though so