Summer 2021 - Going to north east （东北）China - From Yiwu to Shenyang (从义乌到沈阳)

         Ok, It has been almost a year since I wrote anything here. I am nothing if not inconsistently consistent. So, I have not been further north than Beijing before. I always wanted to see Inner Mongolia and I have heard a bit about the North east provinces (Liaoning , Jilin and Heilongjiang) many times. So my plan is to go through Liaoning (Shenyang , Dandong and Dalian) then take a train straight through Changchun to Harbin (Heilongjiang) then stop for a brief period in Qiqihar before moving on to Inner Mongolia.

         I took the train around 11 P.M. one evening deep in the knowledge that I will have to spend 32 hours on this mechanical marvel. I booked a hard sleeper safe in the knowledge that I will be able to sleep twice before disembarking in Shenyang.

Home for 2 nights 

More comfortable than it looks,

(Although I did sleep on the bottom of the 3 bunks)

        I did not realize  that so much corn is grown EVERYWHERE in northern China. The closer one gets to Liaoning, the more one sees fields full of food.

So much food everywhere

Not much leftover space here

       I knew I would be quite thirsty on this trip (and on most trips) so I decided to do what a lot of the locals do, bring some tea leaves and a thermos flask and top of the thermos with boiling hot water all the time.

Peppermint tea to keep the thirst under control

                                              

I wonder where that path leads to?

       In fairness some of the sights on the way up to Shenyang were not too mind blowing but it was still interesting to see how much can be build in a limited area of space.

I think this was Jinan in Shandong province.

So many buildings.

But it was always interesting to see marshland.

I ended up seeing many areas like this in north east China. 

Odd cloud formation here

       When I got off the train (after 2 nights of quite good sleep. The train staff darken the windows pretty well so the carriages are pitch dark at 10:45 each night.) I walked in a stupor for a while. The first street that I walked down would have shocked a bit if I was more awake. I did not really expect to see a collection of sex shops so close to the station. All I was looking for was food and a place to stay so I moved on .

        To find a place, I used the Meituan (美团) app. (Search for hotels (宾馆) while inside the app. )

I was able to find a place about 5km from the train station. This place provided a bed and a shared toilet. I reckon I would probably spent most of the time away from the hotels/ hostels that I stayed at so there was not much point getting a fancy place to stay at.

          

Always remember where you are staying

(and if you cannot remember, take a picture)

The bedroom

I would show a pic of the toilet but the glass in the door 

kept falling down and I was afraid that I was going to

break that glass.

       I went for  walk around the park in the area and I noticed that people really love parks here and there seems to be a lot of amusement parks in the area. (I always remember watching documentaries about North Korea and one would always see amusement parks there.) This province is right beside North Korea so I guess some of the culture is shared between the two areas.

These merry go rounds are popular around these parts

Not many clouds in the sky  (南湖公园)

Nice artwork on the streets of Shenyang

      I decided to stop by a big shopping mall to see how this place differs from the malls down in Zhejiang.

I am  taking a picture of me with me in the background 

and me in the background of the background

Art is confusing at times

...... and then other times, not so confusing

Time is always a heavenly thing

Biggest flowers in the history of malls

You can't go wrong with a bowl of 肉丝面

shredded meat with noodles

      On the second day, I decided to go to a wild animal park. It was quite fun seeing the bears , pandas , tigers , wolves, llamas and the rest of the animals. I thought before I went there that it might be a bit boring but it ended up being quite entertaining.

Nice to see you guys,too

Smile for the camera!

Hiding from the heat.

(I know the feeling.)

Some wolves who I guess are too tired to get their food 

(I still prefer to stand 10 feet away from them.) 

Bears begging for some food

The shadow makes the bird look like she has 2 heads.

Pandas are playful (as long as one stands

miles away from the panda!)

Quite the cute animal, the alpaca

Totem pole

A family of giraffes

            Enough with the zoo! I needed to eat something before the belly gave in. So, some mooncakes (月饼)  were needed.

Black sesame seed mooncake .

num num

It tastes nicer than it looks.

It's a bit dry so a beverage is called for.

My favourite snack (手抓饼 - shou zhua bing)

There is a sausage amongst the lettuce , onion and spices

Anyway, enough with the food, I decided to head to Dandong. For this journey I wanted to take the train as much as possible so it took a few hours to get to the border town of Dandong. I will put thse picture up another day. First, some ice cream......

Heading to Banqiao she zu xiang (板桥畲族乡) from Wuyi（武义）

         It seems like I should get up at sunrise when I travel.  So, at 6 o clock, I headed on the the next destination. This is a good idea as this part of China gets super hot from 11 am to 3pm. I never tested the theory that an egg will cook on the road at 33 degrees. (If only I had an egg , I would have given it a go.)

Anyway, I noticed that I was heading into Lotus plant territory.

View from the tent.

(The road was maybe 30 meters away)

There is a road there......somewhere...

That is one big ox or maybe they are small children.

It's all about perspective, I guess.

On the left hand side it looks like some massive beehives and on the right hand side , it looks like a house was built but the dimensions were deliberately made wrong..

On closer inspection it looks like a hay stack or a massive straw grenade.

        The lotus's here seemed to go on forever. I guess it is one of the mainstay foods in this area. Even the pagoda is surrounded by lots of flowers.

I wonder how one harvests this field.

You can eat the peas from the pods here.

They are a bit bitter but they are apparently good for you.

 （ShiLiHeHua）十里荷花 area

     Anyway, I though I should get a move on and reach the village. I never thought about landslides coring the roads until I saw the one ahead of me. I guess it had happened many times before as there was a makeshift bridge setup 500 meters away. It was scary enough crossing that bridge on a bike but I did see the locals getting ready to cross the bridge with their vehicles. They must have nerves of steel here.

Taking a break at the bottom of the mountain. I was going to drink the water until I saw some fish that I had never seen before trying to eat the skin off my foot. Better not drink this water (and keep the feet out of the water here.)

Damn, I hope no-one was caught under the rubble on the main road here.

The bridge that people use to go up the mountain during landslides

Once I used the bridge, things were plain sailing all the way to the village. Well , except for the heat.

Usually, people do not stray outside in the heat here. I have seen more umbrellas being used in the heat than the rain and now I understand why.

Arriving at the She  (畬) village

Unfortunately , no-one was out practicing the bamboo dancing so I though I better head back to a restaurant and grab some food. Normally I do not like eating fish but as I soon found out 90 % of the restaurants around here are fish restaurants due to having so much of the creatures in the nearby lakes, rivers and streams (A dead giveaway was the name of the biggest city in the area Lishui (丽水) which means beautiful waters. I should have guessed that there would not be too much meat on the menu here!)

Bamboo dancing

Only the hardy souls live at the top of the mountain

Farming at this height must be tough

Fish , rice and a mixture of noodles with random vegetables

          The houses in  the area tended to be quite different. The newer style architecture does not seem as sturdy as the older building (even if some of the older buildings are missing a layer.)

         The murals tend to be a bit different here. I wonder what the hats represent.

These building seem to be slowly disappearing

A 'She' mural from the mountains

As I cycle way from the mountain , I noticed a silo looking object and a shop which looked like it had not been opened in quite a while. I thought I'd better find a place to sleep. I needed some shelter as it started to lash down just at sunset and it continued for a few hours. I hoped that the rain would disappear for at least a few days (well, rain of five minutes every hour would have been welcomed :-) )

To give it a sense of perspective, that is a 3 storey house (on the right hand side of the picture)

These styles of shops have been disappearing in the last 20 years.Modern shops called 小卖部 （XiaoMaiBu） (Little selling areas) have taking over from this DaiXiaoDian (commission shop)

Contrast between sunrise and a lightning storm after the sun has set. 

Taken just as the lightning lit up the sky. 

Heading off into the mountains Yiwu (义务) to Wuyi （武义）

                So , I decided a while back to get a tent and cycle to the mountains to see what this province looks like from a higher vantage point. Normally, I would like to head out to different provinces but it is quite awkward to get out of the province with the virus so this was an interesting alternative.

                I went to the local big market and grabbed a one/two man tent , folded up in my rucksack and headed off in the direction of Wuyi via Fotang (佛堂). 

If I had space, I would have also brought a blanket.

The ground is quite hard.

Inside view of the sweatbox.

There are 2 layers on the opening.

The outside green layer and the inside meashy layer that lets in light and keeps out most of the pesky mozzies// flying insects

     I used Baidu mas to point me in the direction of the first destination (a place called BanQiao She ethnic township (板桥畲族乡))。 I knew that the distance is a bit far to try on a mountain bike so I broke up that journey, too. Every so often , I stopped in a supermarket for some water and usually ice tea to keep my bdy from melting in the heat (usually about 36 degrees.)

           I never realised there were so many tunnels and bridges around here (which in retrospect is a bit dumb!) The tunnels can be quite long so cycling through them becomes quite the experience.

Cycling through an almost 4km tunnel

The trucks horns sound so LOUD in the tunnel!

View from one of the many bridges

Slated house

Ducks enjoying the pond beside the tea fields

The closer I got to the mountains, the more I observed mist at the top of the mountains. I wished some of that mist would descend, though as the heat was something else.

  

The wooden horse of troy.......in China

Either the mountains are on fire or there are 50 cars revving up their engines closeby. (Hmmmmmm......Where is my mask? )

You cannot  have too many trees

Not sure what is in the lake.

I dipped my toes in it and these fish  that looked like see through fish attempted to cleanse my feet of their skin.

I was going to setup camp here for the night but I decided it was a bit early in the day so I moved on to a local town which contained a couple of murals.

Picking tea in the fields

Never noticed these hats as much in other parts of the country

It could be a picture of a bird and a dragon

Nice water fountain feature in the middle of the village

The Ox is an important symbol in this part of the country 

Actually, in other mountain parts of the country, too

         I realized near sunset that I should seek shelter for the evening, so I found a level piece of ground about 30 meters from the road and at an elevated point 20 meters above the road to put up the tent and catch a bit of kip.  The Kindle comes in handy for a bit of reading before sleep time. I also noticed that I would tend to go to sleep not long after sunset and get up not long after sunrise. This is quite different to the normal scheme of things. Interesting.......