Dandong to Dalian (从丹东到大连) - Seaside port ahoy

             Dandong was an interesting place. It seemed like everyone wanted to peer across to North Korea though so it gave me an odd feeling. I guessed that Dalian would be quite different.

              So, early one morning I took the short journey to Dalian. I still could not get over the amount of food  that one can see in the fields of Liaoning. But one can tell when Dalian is approaching by just looking out the window and seeing masses of those new style apartment blocks mixing with said fields.

Leaving the bright lights of Dandong

(minus the bright lights)

SO MANY APARTMENT BLOCKS

               I arrived in Dalian around midday whereupon I was quite hungry. There are usually restaurants around every station. A couple of guys informed me that they wanted to sell some pens to me at rock bottom prices but I had no interest in them (unless they were edible pens. (I did not ask them this question.)) So, I headed for the nearest restaurant to eat something and to also hide from the midday sun.

You can't go wrong with noodles (面), wantons （馄饨）, rice（饭） or soup（汤）.

If you cannot read the menu , you could use the baidu 

translate app. and it will translate everything for you.

      After finishing up the curry chicken rice , I decided to wander about for a while before finding a place to put my bag. It was interesting seeing the modes of transport around this city.

These trams look really old but they do the job.

There are even different styles of trams here.

I think this was just here for show.

It would be nice to have a go in it , though.

I guess I would need to find a horse.

        Eventually, the walking around the place got to me and I decided that I needed to get some rest time, so I was able to find a place from the Meituan app. As you can probable see, a lot of the places I stay /stayed at consist of rooms which contain  very small spaces. So, you can rent a bedroom which usually consists of a bed , a TV , a air conditioner , a kettle and a very small empty space between the end of the bed and the door. The places usually had a communal toilet / shower. 

                                        

                                                       Just enough room to put in a bed.  

I usually bring my own air conditioner that I can plug into a laptop / tablet.

                      I really wanted to see the pier (码头) here so I set off to find the place. 

                                               

                                       Are you guys just hanging out or are you two looking

                                                          for the pier, too?

              The smell of seaweed brought me to the area in question. Back home I don't particularly like that smell but it was good to feel the sea breeze as well as smell the seaweed here.

                                                

                                                               Clear seawater at the port.

                                                                              Nice!

Old school boats

It is nice to spend some time just staring out into the ocean. But some animals had already beaten me to that idea.

"There  is a vast ocean out there, you know."

Gulls directing the sailing boats to shore

Nice contrast between old and new.

Watch out for the rust

I decided to have a quick gander around the city. I bumped into an interesting retro american store that seemed a bit out of place here. But I am only here for a short time so what do I know?

Looks like a 'Happy Days' 1950s  USA retro style store. 

If I was a 1950's Californian party animal....

Nice gramaphone

 Down south , it seems like pig meat is the most popular meat. Up here , different types of combo's can be seen.

I must give that a go (although tea and beef has a better ring to it.)

            The next morning , I wanted to see the Russian street (俄罗斯风情街) just to see the difference between the 2 areas. I was able to taste some chocolate.

Nice chocolate.

There was no need for a fridge to stop the chocolate from melting.

Ah, chocolate , liquor bottles and guns.

3 things that always go together.

Symbolic Matryoshka dolls

            I heard that there is a little Venice in Dalian so I used the Baidu maps app. to find this location. It was cool to see a very European style of architecture around this area. It seems like many couples like to shoot their wedding photos around this area.

 

Oriental Venice Water City东方威尼斯水城

Many couples seem to come here for the wedding shots

If only I was into Harley Davidson, this would be heaven

European style architecture

               

                    There is also a world music museum around here so there are statues dedicated to this. 
                                                      

                       Bit of a different vibe from the Phil Lynott statue or the Luke Kelly statue.

           If one walks behind the  water city, one will find a promenade. You can walk for hours along here  (or swim in the sea if you are strong enough.)

One hearty soul

What's for lunch?

            I forgot to write something. After going up WuLongShan in Dandong, my ears seemed to amalgamate ear wax so I went into the local pharmacy and got some ear drops. My plan was to put these drops in my ear for a few days and then go to the hospital where they would clean them out. I am not sure how easy this is to do as the hospitals might not allow a person travelling around a different province into their hospital.

The ear drops

       Anyway, I went to a few places. I got responses altering from "This hospital is not of the highest queality, go to the other one down the road as it is better quality." to "You are not from here. Sorry, we cannot admit you" to "You have travelled in Shenyang in the last 14 days. Someone just came out out withe the virus. It is too dangerous for us to admit you". So, I decided to buy a spoon specifically designed to help pluck out the dirt from my ears.

The ear picking spoon (耳挖勺 )

  I did this for a few minutes, then I realised that I might accidentally perforate an eardrum so I thought better of it and decided that I might try my luck in another city.

              

                                                     A few  observations \ recommendations.

1. It is always nice to have a meal that I could eat in any city in the world. I found an IKEA and I am always partial to the meat balls.

I am not a flag waver but I will defer to the Swedish flag (this time)

2.  Using a bus on my travels. It is still interesting to me when I get on a bus in most parts of China to see people never choosing to sit beside the window seat. I do not think I would ever see this in any other country.

No one wants to sit in the window seat.

Maybe it is the sun?

3.  Always bring a small bag on one's travels. I have a big rucksack but I bought this bag so that I can keep all the necessary stuff in there and thus save my back from carrying all my other stuff around the place.

Saved my back from collapsing

       

                          Anyway , onwards to Harbin!