Long-weekend Visit to Dalian

I recently took advantage of a three-day weekend in my work schedule to head down to one of the northeast regions' most beautiful beach cities.  Corey, a Californian buddy of mine formerly from Changchun, moved down there with his girlfriend a few months ago.  I crashed with them for a few days and also hung out with a new friend, Andy, from Iowa who's interning with FAW (a German automobile manufacturer) in Dalian.  I originally met Andy one weekend when he came up to Changchun to spend the weekend with a South Korean friend who studies at his alma mater.  It was a great time to catch up with Corey and Helen and experience a pleasant change-of-pace outside of the city for a weekend.

 

I have a couple more weekends like this coming up where I can finagle three days or so and get out and see some of the local area by only a few hours train ride.  Dalian was an eight-hour night train, but the others take only three-four hours, so Shenyang and Haerbin may be in my near-future.  Haerbin has a nationally-renown ice festival in late December/ early January that I definitely want to see before I leave.  It has been a place that has come highly recommended to visit by various ex-pats.

 

The City of Dalian is the cleanest place that I visited in China and in the northeast, by far, and the traffic has a sense of civilized order, instead of a semi-controlled chaos.  It's beautiful with the beach-front properties and wonderful views of the sea that joins the Pacific Ocean.  I had seen the Pacific Ocean once before when I was in Chile, briefly, but now I have seen it from the Asian-side.

 

As my intent for this weekend was to sit-back, I did a minimal amount of rushing-to-and-there sight-seeing and enjoyed times with friends.  I found a great coffee shop adjacent to Corey's place called I-55 (Interstate 55) that hit the right spot.  Owned by an American, it seems to have become a local favorite by Chinese and foreigners, alike.  Coffee was a bit expensive, but worth every pot (they had a variety of international flavors to choose from).  It was a great place to relax with a book and do some journaling.

 

I have a feeling that I will head back down to Dalian again...