Blogs from Liaoning, China, Asia

27th Sept: A lunchtime train got me in to Dalian in the early evening. The train ride was quote annoying as it was just so noisy. The subway into the city and to where I was staying took about an hour. It was easy to find my hostel and I was impressed by how nice it was, even if I did get lost in the labrynith like corridors. After dumping my stuff I headed out to meet a friends that lives in the city. I loved the location of my hostel, right by the water. I liked that the surrounding area was all lit up. It looked really pretty and reminded me a bit of Busan. My friend soon arrived and we headed off to get some dinner. He recommended a place about a 15-20 minute ... read more

We took a cab ride to Forum66, yet another way-way-up-upscale mall. On the way home we decided to walk at least part of the way and we came across a bustling, noisy city park that had all sorts of organized dancing, rides for kids, firecrackers, and (of course) people selling stuff. There were going to be videos here of the craziness, color, lights, and noise but this site has disabled their video server... that's a real shame. We'll post them on Facebook when we get access again. Turned out we walked far enough towards our hotel such that we could just hop on the subway a couple of stops and voila we were back at the Sofitel.... read more

Today and tonight, we picked up our laundry at a local shop, taken the metro north to Beiling Park, a famous, 3.3 million square meter public space, got on a random vehicle within the park taking us to 'who-knows-where' (turned out to be the opposite end of the park, which was a good idea)visited the Zhaoling Tombs, had cotton candy, rented a paddle boat, had tea in the Club Lounge at the Sofitel, and finished off with a dinner at Western restaurant "Olive's" where we met the chef and had a very nice dinner.... read more

Mostly shots from SUT and dinner at the Sofitel... read more

Geo: 38.92, 121.65Dalian is a coastal city which is a popular holiday resort. Because it was Chinese New Year, lots of people were about and there was a party atmosphere. We had a welcome party of dancers on the quayside and in People's Square kids were flying kites. We had an overview of the city from Green Hill viewing platform and drove all the way round Xinghai Square which is the largest in Asia, larger even than Tiananmen square. It is surrounded by exotic buildings and the lights are in the shape of acacia flowers which is the city flower. The city is famous for its Police horses which are all ridden by women. There is a sculpture to them in the square. There is also a massive horizontal sculpture which goes up at the sides. ... read more