Today was another day in which we just travelled. We slept for quite a long time then left the hotel and flagged a taxi. We didn't really care to stay in Dalian as the only things there were seafronts and squares, so we were off to get a ferry to Yantai. Our taxi was absolutely lovely and chatted with us, but he was very judgmental about us not having seen anything at all in Dalian! According to the China guide, people in Dalian are very friendly and proud of their city, and you can tell someone from Dalian no matter where they are in the world. I thought it was legend but the taxi driver certainly seemed to fit the description. It was the first time I'd felt guilty about zipping around so quickly. Mostly though, despite our speed, we've managed to see anything worth seeing everywhere we've been.
We got our ferry tickets and just had time to get lunch. Liam had beef noodles and I had a lovely steaming bowl of fresh prawns, cooked cucumber strips and rice noodles in broth at a restaurant in the harbour. We tried out some wind flavoured (translation: local) cuisine, pretty much all seafood, which Liam doesn't eat. He tried a prawn though and didn't vomit, such progress.
We got on a coach which took us to our boat and struggled up the gangplank. We apparently had seats but when we got to the right room on the ferry the seats weren't labelled. It was a free-for-all. We were at one point being stared at by everyone in the room which was a little disconcerting, so we set up camp outside the room in the corridor and read our books, practically for the entire journey, and ate Oreos. I was looking through my photos on my camera and a lovely little toddler girl came up and made friends with me so she could see the pictures too. She wouldn't accept an Oreo though even though she clearly wanted one. Liam can't stand boats and open water but I can't think why - I went up on the deck and the sight of the sun setting over the rippling water was enchanting. The fresh air out on the sea was great too. Too cold to stay outside though! I think in summer it'd be really lovely out on deck if there weren't too many people, which being China, is not a possibility. Liam coped fine the whole way though and soon we'd anchored at Yantai. We were speaking absolute and quite offensive rubbish while waiting impatiently to disembark and suddenly realised the woman next to us understood every word.
By the time we reached Yantai it was nightfall and we caught a coach at the harbour to the train station. We chose to get off at the train station because it tends to be a central point. At 10 past 10 we got a taxi to a Hostelling International hostel. Ordinarily we both magically know whose bed is whose without even thinking (makes it very easy not having to argue over who's sleeping where) but here we had three beds in the room which totally threw us! We ended up sleeping at opposite sides of the room. Makes a change from sleeping in the same bed as him I guess! We knew we'd be on a night train the next day if all went to plan so God only knows how much sleep we'd get! With that in mind we went straight to sleep.
Residential part of Dalian.
Sample of my dinner - nyam!
Dalian Harbour.
The open water on the way to Yantai.
2 comments:
I've lived in Dalian for the past 18 months. You pretty much summed it up in one sentence!
I've lived in Dalian for the past 18 months, and you have summed it up nicely in one sentence!
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