Doing up Dalian

Because we were feeling adventurous (and because we really needed some foam for our mattress from the Ikea store in town) we decided to spend Sunday in Dalian. We left for the Qing guy (pronounced “Ching way”) around 9:00ish and spent an hour or so riding the light rail line into Dalian. It was pretty comfortable as we got on at the first stop of the route and so had seats. Kristen did some marking, Paul read. All in all a pretty decent way to travel.

When we got into Dalian we realized we had done a fairly stupid thing. We had left our map of Dalian as well as our guidebook (which has a map of Dalian) at home. So we wandered around asking for a map in broken Mandarin and got laughed at by a woman who sold us the map for 5 kuay (slang for yuan and pronounce “ka why”). Not sure why she was laughing, but we definitely stood out as tourists. 

Paul trying to track his way around a city with a tourist map and no discernible landmarks.

Dalian is a city of 6.5 million and it certainly feels like it around the downtown core. We pushed our way through crowds of people filing through underpasses, negotiated the labyrinthine underground passages that tunnel under most of the city’s main roads. Doing this without getting elbowed in the ribs by an old lady, getting hassled by the thousands of vendors (selling watches, knock off bags, knock of clothing, real clothing, real cheap clothing, food, things that look like garbage but are probably food, jewellery, hair accessories, fake jewellery, fake hair accessories, small fluffy bunnies in cages, toys or nun-chucks), running into beggars with no legs or spat, coughed or sneezed on is no mean feat and isn’t exactly “comfortable”.

Paul took a picture when there was a second of calm. SO MANY PEOPLE EVERYWHERE!!!!!

On the other hand, it beats wading through traffic that doesn’t stop for pedestrians, doesn’t seem to care that you are walking across a crosswalk where the light indicates it is safe to walk, doesn’t obey any laws of the road or even of common sense. Unfortunately, this is the only option when underpasses aren’t available.

Walking in a Chinese city may one day make the X-games as a trial sport.