"Every fucking city looks the same." - Paul Kelly
Paul Kelly's lyrics may suit Dalian city well - where the less-than-10-year-old buildings are seen everywhere and pedestrians just walked pass the street when the light is red, and cars just passed the crosswalk when the light is still green - that is the definition of another 100 cities. Yeh, it feels like just another city in the China, or as what I insisted - 3rd tier city in the PRC. It may not be the kinda city you are going to miss or return after first-time visit, yet it fortunately still provide something, if not that much, for an amateur photorgrapher to record with camera and words.
The first day after we arrived, we were impressed by the messness of the railway station and abortion advertisements posted everywhere in the every possible place (no photos as I really did not want my lens smoke the soot from the kebab stalls) .
We settled down and changed a room immediately in a hotel nearby the 38 Square (city also has 27 square fyi) before heading to Laohutan Ocean Park (老虎灘海洋公園). The local taxi service is cheaper compared to Beijing, with 8 bucks to kick-start and 1.6 yuan per km to add up. It was early afternoon when we arrived the park. As I expected the ticket at the gate is a rip-off, so I took as many as photos to exploit the ticket's marginal value!
The park is consisted of a series of individual aquarium and entertainment facilities, carnivals, shops and restaurants blah blah, just like another city in this nation. One thing we found bit strange was there were many stalls selling squid kebabs(魷魚串兒) everyfuckingwhere. It was not a new thing to see squid kebab, but selling it besides tanks in which the fish was still alive? It is bit cruel and ridiclous - just picture chowing the chunk of the fish kebab besides a fish tank, what could a child learn from visiting this place? "Fish looks nice and tastes good too!"
Anyhow speaking of the best part of the park, Polar Animal area is one of best honestly- regardless of sleeping polar beer and fish kebab - seeing a real Dugong swimming in front of you is still an experience that hard to forget - considered before that the biggest "fish" I ever saw were Chinese sturgeon. Also the size of shark is much larger compared to the ones live in Beijing ocean park. Except for sea mammals, the park has a quite nice birds garden built besides the sea shore. The enclosure inside is not bad since they adopted the nest instead of the cage to keep the birds, so most birds can do whatever they like except for hawks and one vulture, whose claws were cuffed to the pole.
We went to Russian Street afterwards, IMHO, it is a crap.
Next day we decided to give a try on Lv Shun. We had a good gossip on the bus with a Dalian local who was also heading to LS, from which we learnt he believes Dalian is a city largely influenced by Japanes colonial culture and the "2nd home town" to the Japanesem. The tramcar and colonial bank buildings we saw in city may explained where his allegation came from. However this Dalian local truely thought the time when japanese ruled Dalian city was not bad - at least the buildings are still lasting and tramcar and railroad are still working - no comments.
So we got there nearlly by the middle of the day and couple of hours later we already draw a mutual conclusion that there are nothing much to see! We had a mountain view from the top of White Jade mountain (白玉山 or kown as 203 Hill in terms of war history), it was nice and yeah that is it. The biggest thing about this mountain is the bullet-shape tower built on its top. By the time it was built the name was 表忠塔 (Devotion Tower) , and the name was changed to White Jade tower in 1980s. This change was understood as due to the negative meaning the original name has suggested - Devotion to Japan army. Made of disposals from after-war garbage, the tower was used for commemorating the dead Jpanaese armies killed in the war. There is a blog article well explained in detail about the origin of the tower: http://hejianjushi.blog.hexun.com/17831866_d.html I am surprised the tower has survived untouchly for over a hundread year, when it is mostly a humiliation symbol to glorify the horrors of war. Another dominator of Lv Shun in historywas Russians, opposited to the White Jade mountain we found the russian tower, built for commorating the friendship between Russian and Chinese, or Russian fucked here once.
After back to Dalian, we came across a Subway shop and felt lucky to finally have some decent food to eat! Xinghai park and square made our day finally, as we at least found a place can define Dalian as a habour city.
The last day we paid a short but most unforgettable trip to Shi Cao Village, one of recent Chinese spy movie was said had some shoots there. Its own beauty is defined by the steep cliffs and boiling billows, by the sea it was totally overcasted with thick mist saturated in the air, made us feel like walking in a real scene from the movie Twilight Saga or Harry Potter, only difference is you would not expect to come across either werewolf or vampire or some geeky kids riding on a rough broom. I felt glad we made it to Shi Cao before left Dalian, so did K, least this one single spot stood out and differentiated it from other spots of the cities - but it may not last very long, as the cranes and migrant workers have already begun taking over this area - they are turning it to another tourist site, another fucking the same tourist site as elsewhere in China.
