Dalian is quite close to Beijing, but across a bay, so the train takes a bit over 10 hours to get there. My ticket was for the K681 - leaving at 8:20, arriving at 8:25 (K trains make more stops along the way than the faster and more expensive Z trains - there are a few other letter codes, but not between Beijing and Dalian). The train station is accessible by subway easily (though it is quite far from our campus). There are a few stations in Beijing, and I was to leave from the main one. I'd taken trains in China before, and so had a bit of an idea of what Beijing station would be like. I was not surprised by the enormous, grandiose station buildinng, but I was surprised by the classy interior. It was like an airport, with waiting lounges for each train looking like overcrowded airline club rooms. I was able to find my "gate" (with little difficulty, but knowing Chinese is pretty much required to navigate the rail system) and board my train by 8.
There are a few classes of travel on Chinese trains, hard or soft, seat or sleeper. Hard seat is the cheapest, and soft sleeper is the most expensive. Most Chinese take hard sleeper as it's not too expensive (Y250, as opposed to Y390 for soft sleeper) and actually allows you to sleep. This was my thinking as well. My girlfriend had said she'd never heard of foreigners taking hard sleeper before (the general assumption is that foreigners are happy to pay extra for soft sleeper) but there were two Filipino students on the beds above me, so clearly I wasn't the only one. Hard sleeper beds are arranged in three levels, grouped in sets of six (so three bunks face another three bunks), with dividers between. The top two had the Filipinos, the middle had me and a man who does some sort of work related to seaports (hence going to Dalian) and the bottom had a family of three (with a 3 month old daughter) travelling to a small town in Liaoning, one stop before Dalian. They were a nice group of people, and though the Filipinos weren't talkative (probably because they had to come up from Shanghai) and I had trouble understanding the northeast accents of the others, it was a good trip. We were able to share a lot before lights out at 10pm. The ride was smooth (didn't even notice the train starting) and I only woke up a couple of times, when the train stopped. Hard sleeper, despite the name, is fairly comfortable.
My train buddies.
Hard sleeper
I arrived in Dalian, and promptly lost all my new friends in the rush of people through the quiet station. So, I was on my own waiting for Leslie, who would land a bit before 10. I was easily able to find a tourist map, and Dalian is quite small, so I was able to keep myself occupied roaming around until then. The train station is next to Shengli (Victory) Square, which is an odd collection of sculptures (ranging from what looks like a scene from VP-day, to a giant saxophone) on top of a huge underground shopping centre, closed when I was there.
Creepy sculpture on Shengli Square.
There was also a morning market nearby, which I avoided. Instead, I got out my map and tried to find interesting things nearby. Youhao (Friendship) Square was a short walk away, but not too interesting, just a giant ball in the middle of a roundabout. Zhongshan (Sun Yat-Sen) Square was the same distance again, and much nicer, despite mostly being a construction site (Dalian is plagued by the same subway diggers as Harbin, but it's worse here because it's a smaller city). I spent some time here, looking at the interesting buildings around the square (which is circular). Dalian has a lot of skyscrapers and is quite clean for the most part, a lot like Nanjing which I also liked. After a while here, I decided to head back to Shengli Square, as I'd read somewhere the airport bus stops at the train station.
Looking towards Youhao Square from Zhongshan Square. The ball lights up at night.
I looked around the underground shopping centre, but finding little more than clothes shops with bad English, I decided to check out the morning market. Found some interesting souvenirs (though there wasn't much particular to Dalian) and practised my haggling skills. After wasting a bit of money (but a lot less than they were asking!) I got a message from Leslie saying she would meet me at Zhongshan Square. So, I slowly headed back. Unfortunately she got stuck in traffic, so I became intimately familiar with the square. I was also noticing the stares, which should be expected in a place like this, but I suspect they were not so much unused to foreigners, but thinking "why did you come here in winter?". Eventually Leslie showed up, and we set off to find things to do.
Some of the buildings around Zhongshan Square.
We found Russian street, past a tram line and the worst intersection in Dalian. It is like a smaller version of Harbin's Central Street, full of Russian signs and faux-colonial Russian buildings. It has more people on the street selling things than in Harbin though. I had to explain to Leslie the Russian dolls they were selling - she didn't know they had smaller dolls inside.
Russian Street. Unfortunately didn't bring my Russian hat.
After this, and after finding our hotel and checking in, Leslie wanted to ride a tram. Trams are uncommon in China, and are in Dalian due to its Russian history (some old Russian trams are still running). Leslie had never seen them before and called them buses on rails - which of course led to a lecture about the Adelaide O-Bahn. On the way to the tram stop, we walked past an odd street with giant beer bottles.
Bang, anyone?
Old Russian tram.
We found a tram line not far from our hotel. According to our map, it went to the beach, but none seemed to go that far, so we took it as far as it would go, and back again. It was an old-style tram on the way out, and a modern one on the way back. We then took a bus to another beach, Tiger Beach. It felt like an abandoned resort, which wasn't far from the truth - few tourists come here outside of summer.
Ocean Park at low tide.
Walking along the "beach" we saw an interesting attraction - an old destroyer. You could go in for Y20 and were free to look around the entire ship. Leslie got in for free as she has an official tour operator ID (she has a scam for everything).
As far as I could tell, the ship had no name apart from "104".
Parts of the interior had been decorated with posters explaining the history of the ship and the Chinese navy (all in Chinese), including one eerie diagram showing Taiwan's defenses. There was also a strange hallway deep in the ship which looked like it might have been a hotel - turns out it was. It didn't look open but perhaps during the summer, it is possible to sleep on board.
We continued walking along the coast for a while. Leslie really wanted to see a particular bridge further along. We walked past a bird park before finding a beach. Going down to the beach, we walked past a bride and groom - people have their wedding photos taken here. It is a small beach between cliffs, with more rocks than sand. There are a few islands visible - there are expensive ferries to some of them I think.
Islands from the beach
Looking at the beach from above.
Not much further along was that bridge - Bei Da Qiao (North Big Bridge). Apparently it was built as a friendship project between China and Japan. It covers a valley - the ocean comes in a small way under the bridge, and inland there are some buildings nestled between mountains. It's a good place for photos, and looks a bit European.
Bei Da Qiao
Looking inland from the bridge.
We then decided to walk back - there wasn't much more in this direction for a while. We went back to Tiger Beach and caught a bus back into the centre of town. Got off at Labour Park, which was closing down (everything in Dalian seems to close early). We couldn't do much but look at the attractions. It has a small Chinese-style garden near the entrance, then an amusement park, then its centrepiece, a giant soccer ball. It also contains Dalian's TV tower.
Giant soccer ball and TV tower.
We then returned to the proper centre of town, around Zhongshan and Youhao Squares. By now it was dark. There is not much to do in Dalian at night by the looks of things, so we decided to have dinner and then an early night.
See, it really does light up.
Dinner was at a Shaanxi restaurant (not to be confused with the neighbouring province Shanxi). We had Chinese burgers, noodle soup, and I tried a Dalian dry beer. I don't know why they call it dry.
Not sure what the Chinese burger is actually called, but they're really good.
I'm pretty sure you were eating this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rou_jia_mo
ReplyDeleteYes, it was rou jia mo. Very nice!
ReplyDelete