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Published: September 27th 2009
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On Monday it became clear that there would be no lectures on Friday. This was for me the trigger to immediately book a train ticket to Dalian. I actually had this trip in mind for the long weekend after the National holiday, but it is not clear whether we really have this long weekend, so when this long weekend appeared, my choice was made very easily. Because it is not possible to book a return ticket, I decided to take the night train to Dalian and by a return ticket there at arrival (my first preference was go directly to Dandong).
For the first time travelling by train, the people around me were not so curious and talkative. This made the train trip very silent. Because the train left at 21:15 and arrived at half past six in the morning, I slept during the most of the train ride. At arrival in Dalian, I was lucky and bought a train ticket back to Harbin for Sunday night. The next step was to find the bus to
Dandong. The whole process went so easy that I took the bus at 7 o’clock. I arrived in Dandong four hours later. There, I
sat down, looked at my Lonely Planet and decided to immediately go to the Great Wall. And again, this process went so fluently (someone walked with me to the bus) that that bus also left at once.
The bus drove next to a river and I suspected that the other side of the river was North Korea, which turned out to be true. Arriving at the
Tiger Mountain Great Wall, I bought a ticket and the people there were so kind that I could leave my big backpack there. The sun was shining and the way up looked very high and steep. With some water and my camera I began the climb. I was indeed very steep, but it offered great views of the surroundings. Where the last time I climbed the wall it used to be the border between China and Mongolia, this time it was the border between China and North Korea. The views of this
forbidden land were great. There was a village at the other side of the - very small - river, which looked very basic. There was the opportunity to take a look through a telescope, but I didn’t use it, because I
felt I would be like spying on people... But the idea that at the other side of the river, life isn’t as prosperous as at this side had a kind of creepy feeling. The piece of restored Great Wall was not that large, and there were no views of other pieces in the surrounding. At the end there was a very small museum, which had only two English captions, but the atmosphere they created there was funny, because they had put some warlike music on.
After having my picture taken a dozen of time with other tourists, I waited for the bus to return to Dandong. When I arrived there, there was an old man showing me pictures of a room and I decided to follow him to the place. But when I arrived, the owner said I couldn’t stay there because I wasn’t Chinese or didn’t have some kind of a special card (this is what I guess, because my Chinese is still not very well). So the man was kind enough to show me another hotel. A bit pricy, but the room is perfect, so I decided to take it anyway (13 euro is not that much
after all and the LP stated the same price for their cheapest hotel).
After having taken a shower, and having watched a big parade from my window, I walked to the
Yalu river. There again, there were views of North Korea. The
Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge is the currently used bridge for trucks and trains (I only saw trucks). What I noticed was that the Chinese half of the bridge looks much nicer than the bridge of the Korean half, which was much more basic. Next to this bridge, there is the
Broken Bridge, which was bombed by the American military. Because only the half of the Chinese is still standing, it is possible to walk on it. The Koreans removed their part of the bridge. There was not much going on at the Korean riverside, except a few fishermen trying to catch some fish and some industry. I walked around the boulevard and went to a Korean restaurant. When I left the restaurant, I had become dark. Both bridges were lighted with all kind of neon lights. Also around the boulevard at both sides of the bridges there were a lot of neon lights changing colours all the time.
I went to a park running across the boulevard, which was full of people practicing tai chi. I sat down on the stairs running down to the river. What really struck me that there were no lights (except 3 or so) at the North-Korean border. It was such a bizarre feeling! At the one side there is so many activity and at the other none! How awful must that be when you’re a Korean watching all the neon lights representing freedom...
After having said goodbye to North-Korea, I returned to the city centre of Dandong. I found a wide shopping street, where about eight large groups of people (minimal 30 each) where doing exercises. From tai chi to hand clapping (I stayed there for 10 minutes and that was the only thing they did) and from aerobics to Chinese dancing. I also found a very large
food market selling all kinds of food. There was Tibetan food, Korean food, Mongolian food, Turkish-like food and many many more. Many of the stalls has loud music on and where making a show of it. After all these impressions, I was exhausted and called it an early night in my nice hotel
room.
The following morning, I had breakfast in the hotel, which was nothing special but ok. I decided to take it easy and to write down what I had experienced so far. Around 9:30 I arrived at the bus station and bought my ticket to Dalian. Because the first bus left at 12:30, I took a taxi to the
Museum to Commemorate US Aggression. There were again many steps up, leading to a large monument and the museum. Almost everything had English captions and it was a good history lesson about the Korean war, which I knew nothing about. The fact that 1.3 million Chinese volunteered the war was very surprising. Also the fact that the US army tried to use biological weapons like crickets was new to me. The advertisements to convince the soldiers of the US army to surrender where nice to see. Outside there also was a exhibition of all kind of army airplanes, heavy artillery, and tanks.
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