Blogs from Shenyang, Dongbei, China, Asia

I was lucky enough to go travel again after my recent trip to Peru. This time I visited the northeastern three provinces in China, an area with great scenery and plenty of culture and history. The 3 provinces cover a vast territory. Jilin province is located in the central part of Northeast China, adjoining Heilongjiang Province in the north, Lianing Province in the south, and the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region in the west. 95% of the Manchu minority live in NE China, but they only comprise of 5% of the nation's total population. Shenyang is the #5 largest city in China, after Shanghai, Beijing, Chongching and Tianjin with a population of 7 million. Today was a long trip just getting to Shenyang, a recurring theme for the rest of my trip. We went to see ... read more

Yesterday after arriving we checked into the "Post Hotel" which literally looks onto the train station and was a twi minute walk. We got a pretty normal dorm room (with a public bathroom) and breakfast for 98 RMB a night (about $12). Then we started adventuring around the city. We took a bus, that one of our newfound friends from the train told us about to a random point and decided to get off and walk. There were hoards of traffic and many businesses for a few blocks (including a small food market). We bought some strange looking snacks (one looked like but didn't taste like a small cinnamon roll). Then we found a place and realized we'd walked to the Imperial Palace built during the Manchurian period. It was huge and expensive and about to ... read more