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Published: February 24th 2013
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Another night in the train. We arrived in Dalian around 11am. Because of its nice seaside, good fish restaurants and a lot of green space in the city, Dalian is supposed to be the most liveable city in the whole of China.
Finding the hostel was easy because the city is not too big. The start was a little disappointing because even though we changed the dates for our stay in the hostel 2 days in advance, the owner was not willing, to give as at least a little refund back. Nothing. Anyway, we started with some pretty good seafood and strolled around town afterwards. The weather was good and the city really felt different in comparison to all the other chinese cities I have been to so far. It was more relaxed and due to the topography, the city is not so dense.
We spent a fairly good evening with some guys from the hostel and had some beers in two bars. Around 2am our growing hunger chased us to the only place in walkind distance that still offered some food - the big, yellow M. In addition to the food, we were lucky enough to get entertained
calligraphy
Mc Donalds; 3am by an old, apperently slightly (maybe a bit more than slightly) drunk chinese man, who elected Mc D. as the perfect place to spend his night, doing some calligraphy. He was pretty glad to have some company to whome he could show his skills. Although the employees were not to happy about his attendance (he ate nothing but spilled the ink several times all over the table), we liked him and even got some farewell presents saying: "Year of the Dragon" and "Year of the Snake".
The next day was ment to be our "First time at the chinese seaside" day, but the weather tricked us. It was cold and snowy. Nevertheless we went there thinking that this little snow would not be able to decrease Dalians praised life quality. We spent there the most disappointing hours of the whole trip. It was kind of a really sad place. An almost unused theme park in the sleet is a really sad sight. Of course we knew it is unrealistic to hope for a nice, undisturbed view of the ocean, but we didn't expect to see so much industry and heavy machinery-stuff. All this experience was crowned by the biggest
architectural mistake I have seen so far. After I spent almost one year in China, I am used to crazy stuff, strange stuff and copies everywhere but even for China, this was completely ridiculous. Next to the waterfront, situated at the slope of a rather nice hill there will be a new hotel soon. The construction was almost finished and of course some professional as well as reliable european architects advertised this architectural cruelty on huge billboards. It is ........ a fairytale castle combined with a medieval fort. And the advertisement can't stress enough, that it is a perfect combination of european castles like "Neu Schwanstein" and the "chateaux de la loire". I can't find the right words to describe this inapprehensible monstrosity. As a prospective architect it made my heart bleed. Is this what we have to do when we want to earn money? What happend to the honor of the guys who are building shit like this or giving theire names and pictures for the advertisement??? What happend to the so called "genius loci" and to the responsibility that comes along with the work of an architect?? Shame on you.
Next stop: Beijing - smog, smog and
smog
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