Advertisement
Published: July 13th 2008
Edit Blog Post
This past weekend I went to Dalian, along with about half of my fellow classmates. Dalian is a city in the Liaoning Province of China and is sandwiched between ocean. One side faces out towards mainland China and Beijing, the other faces Korea, North Korea if im not mistaken. Some background on Dalian: It's claim to fame in contemporary China is its urban planning and urban form. While the city is an important tourist destination, it is also famous as one of the most 'livable' cities in China for its own residents - the first Chinese city to be recognized as one of the UN's 'Global 500'. Today's Dalian is a visual encyclopedia of Tsarist Russian, Japanese imperial, Chinese Socialist and Chinese Modernist ideas about urban planning and the organization of city space and people.
We left on Thursday night around 9:30pm from Beijing's City Train Station. The place was packed as you can see below, but wow, i can believe how amazing and efficient the Chinese train system is...and cheap (relative to flying or any form of travel in America). Every student had what is called a 'hard sleeper', which gives you an air-conditioned area of the train and
either the top, middle, or bottom bunk bed to sleep on. People often chat and hang out on the bottom bunk until it is time to go to bed, so i highly suggest avoiding that one. I actually had the bottom bunk on the way to Dalian and was fortunate enough to experience this first hand. On the train ride back i had the middle bunk, or Zhongpu, and it was fantastic. The beds are fantastic. I have never slept better.
We arrived in Dalian at about 8am on Friday morning. The weather forecast was light showers on friday and overcast on saturday. The first destination on our agenda was Xinghai Square. Its a giant square that is right on the water in the middle of the city. Theres some sort of totem pole thing in the middle of it that i did not really understand. I guess it is actually the biggest Asian public square. Horse carriages frequently take tourists or couples around the square...its really a circle though. I walked all the way to the water where there was this sort of giant half pipe. The view was amazing. There was also a small beach that looked
a bit rough by american standards and also a small amusement park. Later we had lunch and met up with the group before we headed to your next location, Bangchuidao Beach.
Bangchuidao Beach was impressive. the views were amazing. the water was colder than any i have probably ever swam in. Cool islands and rock formations were abundant. lots of newly weds or couples who are about to be wed come here to take pictures or even have their receptions...so we saw a ton of couples dressed up taking pictures. Most people didn't dare go in the water, but i was one of the few to do so. It was fun, and i can now say that i have swum in the pacific ocean on both sides. My friend john and i climbed up a steep set of stairs on the north shore to find a cool pagoda and proceeded to hike through a small unconquered path. it led to some pretty stunning views off of the cliffs. After that we headed back to the hotel and set off in groups to find dinner. We went to some kind of mongolian barbeque style seafood restaurant that was awesome. The
night life followed dinner...
The next day we set off for Laohu Tan, or Tiger Beach, around 9:30am. The location had a bunch of little activities to do in addition to the beach. A couple other students, my roommate, and myself decided it would be fun to try one of the speed boat tours of teh bay. We did so and it was a blast. We made it far enough out to see the beach we had been to the previous day. After the ride, with our adrenaline pumping and all, we decided it would be a good idea to check out the bungy jumping place. We only had about half an hour before we had to reconvene with the group so we ran to the place, bungy jumped, and went back. Bungy jumping was a rush. They just pushed me off, which was probably best because i was scared shitless. Afterwards we checked out the beach, ate some fresh seafood, and proceeded to walk up the coastline and enjoy the scenery. Finally we took a bus to the Russian district of the city and walked around for awhile. It wasn't really anything too special, just a bunch of
street venders selling fake watches and cheap stuff (not really russian either). Afterwords we met up with the group and headed to the train station to catch our ride back to beijing. I had the middle bunk this time and it was awesome. The beijing trains actually have a built in pullup bar that i used. Afterwords everyone on the entire train started doing pullups. It was pretty ridiculous.
Thats all ive got. I miss everyone back home and hope you are all doing well. All in all, Dalian was great. If you so choose to go there, i recommend the beaches and hiking around the most.
-Schlaef
Advertisement
Tot: 0.173s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 15; qc: 55; dbt: 0.1103s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
MOM
non-member comment
OMG!!! NOT FEELING IT!!!!
You forgot to mention the JUMP!! I started crying I was laughing so hard... and you keep saying, "Don't worry"!! I also go a kick out of the old ladies watching you ride the toy zebra in the park. ** don't for forget the family moto ** xoxo miss you, MOM