Last stop

My last stop

As I had somewhat kept to Russian Far East time, it wasn’t a problem taking the 0742 train from Dandong.  The 0400 sunrise helped too.  We took a taxi to Dandong’s small station in good time for our final train ride in Manchuria to the city of Dalian.

Dalian and neighbouring Lushun (formerly Dalny and Port Arthur) have a very complicated history.

This part of Manchuria had been part of successive Chinese empires for over a thousand years, but in 1898 China leased the area to Tsarist Russia for its year-round ice-free port. Russia lost the lease to Japan after the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Following Japan’s defeat in World War II, the Soviet Union occupied the area and retained Port Arthur as a leased naval base. The last Soviet forces withdrew in 1955, returning the area to full Chinese control.

Vladivostok, the first city in my Manchurian adventure, became Russia’s most important naval port.

Arriving in Dalian

Arriving at 1026, we stayed at the Hanting Hotel very near the station.  But the sun was beating down on us, and the heat and humidity very oppressive.

We were lucky to get a room straight away and stayed indoors till about 1630.  We didn’t even leave the room for lunch at the nearby shops as D didn’t trust any eatery near a station.  The bibimbap delivery which he ordered for me (in addition to his own meal) was delicious.

My plan for the evening was to explore the coastal area southwest of Dalian city centre.  I had selected two spots out of three possibilities, thinking that it would be too ambitious to do all three.

Beach and the Beer Festival

The first stop, which we reached by car was Fujiazhuang Park amidst a lot of traffic.  This was a fairly nice beach but in the extreme heat of about 38 degC and humidity, everyone seemed to have set up camp there.  It looked like a refugee settlement.  On the rocks nearby, several couples were taking wedding photos.

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Once we had had enough, it took a long time before our ride could get to us, due to really bad traffic.  Our next stop was Xinghai Plaza, a huge round plaza further west.

Getting there around 1930, the place was ablaze with lights and lasers, having been set up for the Dalian Beer Festival.

We had been lucky to catch the festival on its last night.  On such a steamy evening, it was a disappointment that our first beer was warm.  We made our way around the ten or so huge beer halls, tucking in on barbecued meat and seafood skewers, and other snacks intermittently.

It was a very family-friendly event with lots of children and the elderly enjoying the street food as well, even though choices didn’t stray too far from mainly skewers.

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It wasn’t too much of a wait for a car to take us back to the hotel around 2200.  The steamy evening had sucked much life out of me by the time I climbed into bed around 2300.