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More tidbits about Dalian: a peninsula city, city with the most number of roundabouts in China (~50), population of about 6 million with 2.9m in the metropolitan area, size of about 30x Singapore.
Today was my last day in China. We went to ShinHai Park (literally translated "Star Sea" Park), a popular park with the locals. It used to be a garbage dump but you wouldn't even know unless someone told you. The plaza here is four times as big as Tiananmen Square. There is a big concrete structure in the shape of a open book. It was constructed to celebrate Dalian's centennial in 1999. Nothing was "written" in this book, to symbolize that the future has yet to be written. A series of footprints lead to the book, starting with those born in 1899 and progressively replaced by younger people and eventually kids. This was to symbolize moving towards the future.
It is customary for newly weds to drive (I guess they walked in the old days) along BinHai Road, a 35km very scenic and windy seaside road, to symbolize longevity of the marriage. First time marriage takes place in the morning, while 2nd/3rd etc marriages take
ShinHai Park
The Open Bookplace in the evening.
We drove along BinHai Road. I didn't see any newlyweds; perhaps it wasn't a "good" day today. BaiDa Bridge spans part of the road. It was built in 1987 to commemorate friendship between Dalian and its Japanese sister city. It is 230m long. It didn't really stand out as anything special.
The last stop of the trip was Tiger Beach Park. This park is a favourite with Chinese tourists. A sculpture of tigers at play is a recent addition to the park̢۪s small square. The 6 tigers were carved from a 2-tonne rock and took 2 years and 9 months.
Before heading to the airport we stopped by a local seafood market. It sells anything imaginable from the sea, mostly in dried/preserved form. The place stank like you wouldn't believe. The thing that caught my attention was dried sea cucumbers that sell for 6500 Yuan/ 500g, or about $1083 Cdn/500g. I suppose if it's good for you that's not too much to pay?!?!? Someone told us that to boost memory you could take a pigeon and cook it with one female and one male seahorse. I think I'll stick to my sudokus.
ShinHai Park
The Open Book So for this trip I got rained on once, saw 2 waterfalls (ok, one was dry), visited the 3 capitals of the 3 Chinese NE provinces, took 500+ photos, travelled about 3500km, slept countless hours on the bus and took home some priceless memories!
I'll leave you with this:
"If you have not travelled, you don't appreciate how big the world is. If you have not explored, you don't know how amazing the world can be."
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