June 19, 2006
We took the ferry from Incheon to Dalian on Saturday night. We shared a cabin with Sang Wook, a very energetic 7 year old, his mom and his grandfather. They were on their way to Dalian for a month to visit Sang Wook's older sister, who we think is going to a private Canadian school there. Language exchange was limited, but we made do and everyone was very cheerful.
We got into Dalian at 10 in the morning and planned to head straight to Shenyang, the provincial capital, but trying to change money left us trudging between banks and by the time we had enough RMB to feel comfortable, the only train tickets we could get were for a sleeper. While we plan to try a sleeper before we leave, doing so for a 4 hour journey seemed silly, so we got a room for the night and wandered around, instead. Dalian is referred to as the Hong Kong of the north and as you can imagine, given that description, the people are more affluent than in most of China and aspire to be so. The city, while large at 5 million people, is fairly relaxed and everyone seemed to be in a good mood.
We spent a very pleasant evening sitting in Zhongshan Square (which is actually a circle) watching people exercise small dogs and play with all sorts of toys: badminton, hacky sack, bikes, roller blades, scooter, cell phones, cameras, bird chasers, bouncy balls, big sponge brushes (the pavement is your Buddha board), people watchers, skates and a top kept spinning by a whip. We had such a good time watching the hacky sack players with their home made hackies, which David kept calling 'hacky-minton', we bought one for ourselves. It's made of plastic discs with metal discs in the middle and four very brightly colored feathers coming out of the top. The construction makes it much easier to hit, which being fabulously uncoordinated, I find very helpful.
Our circuit for the next week, or thereabouts, will take us north. We're planning on traveling from Shenyang to Changchun, Haerbin and then Qiqiha'er, which is as far north as we're allowed to go (more or less). Then we'll shoot down to Beijing and after a couple of days try a more southern (though really central) tour, but more on that later.
-Leah
