Unlike the hustle and bustle of Beijing, Dalian was the scenic reprieve I was looking for. We stopped by the Russian district for some great shopping on the streets selling everything from tripods, tools, and furry Russian hats to toys, trinkets, and hand-carved handiwork. Amongst the rubbish, I found an old man manning a table full of beautifully painted Matryoshka dolls of various sizes. I couldn't resist the charm I found in him and the dolls so I bought one.
We were hungry for some seafood, so after visiting the square, we found a Macanese hot pot restaurant nearby. The fuwuyuan who served us there was a friendly girl in her early twenties who stood by our table to cook for us, which was pleasantly unexpected.
And I wasn't kidding about the castle in the sky! From within the restaurant, we could see a Disneyland-esque castle between the void space of two luxurious condominiums in the foreground. Upon closer inspection, which required us to walk up several flights of stairs, it really was Disneyland-esque in the sense that it wasn't real at all! This is a recent development by someone with a strange idea who wanted to showcase a collection of seashells in a museum, where the "stone walls" were actually plastered and painted on. Not that we were ever fooled into thinking that ancient China had such castles to begin with...
After coming down from the castle, we were waiting around a bus stop for a bus to take us to the beach, but instead, a middle-aged woman in a small van pulled up beside us and said something in Chinese. Fortunately for me, Kim understood her. The busses we were waiting for only ran during the summertime and so she offered to take us to the sights we wanted to go to for a fee. After negotiating a good price with her (we're accustomed to taking black cabs now), we hopped in and had one of the most jubilant driver ever! She was chatting away endlessly with Kim in the back making eye contact using the rear view mirror and though I hadn't the faintest idea of what she was talking about, I couldn't help but crack a smile and let out a few chuckles as she was just laughing her head off after every few sentences. Further down the road was a backup of cars going nowhere due to a large coach bus blocking both lanes. I got out from the vehicle to investigate the situation and found out that it was involved in a small accident with a Honda Civic as it was trying to negotiate a turn on a narrow bend. Though there were only minor scratches on the side of the coach, the rear bumper on the Honda was on the ground.
Jumping back into the van with Kim and our affable driver, I had the camera rolling when it was our turn to drive onto the sidewalk, drive around the coach, and get back onto the road again. We had a crowd of Chinese people coming out of the woodwork observing us as if we were about to perform a circus act. It was an odd experience, and I'm glad I captured it on film, er, SD card.
Shenyang was a disappointment. It was dark, grey, misty, and cold all day, and there wasn't anything much to see other than the abandoned imperial palace, similar to the Forbidden City in Beijing, but much, much smaller. We went to a well-known restaurant famous for its dumplings located right at the gates to the abandoned imperial palace and had one of the most delicious jiaozu ever. Not only did it look delicious sitting in those cute bamboo steamers, it also had the right texture and it was bursting with flavour.
China sure likes their things big. The Great Wall, The Forbidden City, Tian'anmen Square, and the soon to be the world's largest Ferris wheel in Chaoyang park when it's completed in 2009 comes to mind as prime examples of overcompensating. Where Shenyang was lacking, it surely made up for with the largest statue of Mao Ze Dong at the people's square. "SuperMao" as I have affectionately named it, was standing proud with his right hand extended (similar to Hitler's salute) with an army of troopers behind him carrying weapons and ammunitions. Making a mockery of it was just too easy.
