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My trip started suddenly, and unfortunately, ended just as quickly. It was just like that, I decided one day last week that I was going to spend my Labor Day week off at a quiet little getaway just 3 hours north of Dalian called Bing Yu Gou. Hailed as the
Little Guilin of the north, this gem of a place only has a brief history of about 20 years.
Discovered back in the late 80's, Bing Yu Gou is just an hour away by bus outside of a city called Zhuang He. If you're coming in from Dalian, you can spend 35 RMB to buy a one-way bus ticket behind the Dalian train station which takes you all the way to Zhuang He in approximately 2 hours. The buses are spacious and air-conditioned, and the unobtrusive highway made the ride as smooth as a train ride.
Walking out of the Zhuang He station, I was immediately surrounded by hordes of tour guides and "bus hawkers." This instantly brought me back to my visit to Dali. These opportunistic bunch are relentless and will follow you to the end of the Earth. I remember one hawker lady in Dali who
trailed me all the way from the bus station back to my hostel! Thankfully she stopped just short of walking into my room. I guess in China, the smaller the city the more aggressive these people get. I did my best to ignore them and immediately pushed my way through the crowd and into the main street.
Conveniently just across the road were dozens of cheap hostels and hotels for tourists visiting Bing Yu Gou. Average prices range anywhere from 50 to 70 RMB for a double room that comes with a bathroom, A/C, and cable TV. Go through a few of them and check to see if the rooms are up to your standards. The main things are cleanliness and hot water. Prices are also negotiable depending on what time of the year you're there. In low season, you can knock down anywhere from 5 to 10 RMB off the asking price.
A general rule of thumb for travelers in China is that you never settle for anything close to the train/bus station or airport. Go a little further down the road and you'll find some great deals. In my case, I went through four hostels before
I settled on the right one. The room was spacious, clean, had plenty of hot water, and cable TV.
Since we arrived a day early, my friend and I had absolutely nothing to do once we settled into our room. We took a quick nap and two hours later headed out the door for some local specialty.
The city is famous for a dish named "Da Gu Ji" or Big Boned Chicken. And right around the corner from where we lived was the most famous restaurant in town for the dish, or so says the hostel owner. It wasn't cheap (160 RMB for a whole chicken and 80 RMB for half) nor was it elegant. It was simply a whole lot of chicken for two people to finish even if it was served in half, which is what we ordered. Perhaps we were a little hungry at first but the first few bites seemed okay. We gobbled it up like we haven't eaten in 2 days. But after a while, the dish began to get a little too salty for my liking. In fact, after a few more bites, I felt downright queasy. The flavor was too strong and there was just too much chicken for us two to finish. In the end, we managed to only stuff ourselves with 2/3 of the half chicken and left the rest on the table. Now I know why they called it the Big Boned Chicken. It was big!
We left the restaurant two hours later feeling like two stuffed little pigs even though we only really ordered one main dish...the chicken. To work off the food in our stomach and kill more time, we decided to spend the rest of the evening strolling around the city.
Compared to Dalian, Zhuang He was like a paradise. The traffic was sparse and orderly, the streets were wide and spacious, and outside of the bus station, people were extremely hospitable and friendly. The city wasn't big but it had everything: KTV, bath houses, a few bars, quality bakeries, restaurants with the numbers "369" on its signs, and even a large shopping mall that comes with its very own KFC. But above them all, two things stood out for me. It was quiet and the pace of life was considerably slower compared to Dalian. If there were job opportunities, I wouldn't mind living in a city like this.
Little did I know, that evening stroll around town marked the end of my trip. The weather abruptly turned ugly during the night and carried into the next morning. Since we were going to be outdoor the whole day, I figured we might as well call it off and go back on a better day. I was a little disappointed having come all this way just to pull back in the last minute. But I guess the trip wasn't all a waste.
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