Zhongshan Square I have to pay D for the expenses that he had incurred on my behalf in China (whereas he had to pay me for those in Russia).  He preferred to be paid in China in CNY rather than back in New Zealand in NZD. That suited me well and we rocked up around […]

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 […]

Moving to the North Korean border Today, we move on to Dandong on China’s border with North Korea.  With sunrise around 0400 in this part of China, I didn’t mind booking the early train leaving at 0827 leaving from Shenyang station, as opposed to Shenyang North where we had arrived yesterday. Surprisingly, there was no […]

Moving to Shenyang Today we go to Shenyang to visit its Forbidden City.  This was a relatively late add-on to my plan, made possible by shaving one night off Dandong which comes after. We left at 0800 by car to Harbin station where we got dropped off in an underground area. For some reason, our […]

Siberian Tigers The plan for the day was to go to the Siberian Tiger Centre and the Unit 731 where the Japanese experimented with Germ Warfare.  The two places were in the opposite direction and we would make separate trips, including the Spanish guy Vicente for the latter. It worked out better for Vicente for […]

Flying to Harbin Today, we take a short flight to Harbin instead of taking a long ride on the slow train.  Bullet trains haven’t made it to the Heihe – Harbin route yet. We got a car at 0730 for the ride to the airport.  Like many people in north-eastern China, they’re friendly and chatty.  […]

Changing money With the 1h time difference from the Russian side of the river, I woke up at 0600 despite the blackout curtains. We have the day free today, as it is a buffer day in case things had not gone well in Russia or during the border crossing. Due to me being undercharged for […]

Confusing departure I woke around 0500 local time due to the 1h time difference from Birobidzhan.  So, it wasn’t a problem at all getting to the bank for its opening hour at 0830.  Despite our concern with time, it only took 5 mins and we were out at 0835! We returned to the hotel to […]