David's Big Adventure in China

The semester is over and we’re enjoying our summer vacation now. We started by flying to Harbin in the far north of China on July 16. We spent three days there as part of a group of over 300 teachers plus family members that went to Harbin from all over China on a trip sponsored by a publishing house which sells textbooks to the universities. The publishing house paid most of the expenses for the teachers and charged what seemed like a high price for the family members. Apparently more people signed up for the trip than they expected and the hotels had trouble providing enough food for everyone. There were quite a lot of bad manners being displayed in the dining rooms when everyone was trying to make sure they got the food they wanted. While there we went to a former volcanic area northwest of Harbin and stayed in a very nice resort hotel for 1 night. One of Bonnie’s colleagues complained that he didn’t have any hot water in the shower and when he called the front desk they told him that was because he was on the 7th floor and all the hot water was used by the rooms on the lower floors. That’s a typical China experience, to find a beautiful hotel and then learn that they either didn’t design it properly or that they operate it in a substandard way.

We left Harbin via a fast train to Shenyang and then took an overnight train to Baihe in Jilin province to visit Changbai Mountain. We spent the next 2 days visiting the mountain, making it to the top from two different sides to enjoy the view of the volcanic crater lake. The lake and mountain are on the border with North Korea and I actually stepped about 20 yards into North Korea on the top of the mountain in an area controlled by the Chinese and without any North Korean presence. There were armed Chinese soldiers present and they had a roped off area that tourists were allowed to enter on the North Korea side. There was no fence dividing the area.

We left Baihe via another overnight train (19 hours) to Dalian. One of Bonnie’s friends who lives there picked us up at the train station and took us to a hotel. He loaned us his car and we spent the next 3 days seeing the sites of Dalian and then having dinner with him and his family in the evenings. Dalian is a very large and pretty city right on the East China Sea. The traffic flows smoothly and there are very few e-bikes, motorcycles and bicycles on the roads. One of the sites that we went to and enjoyed was the Lavender Garden about 20 miles outside the city.

We flew from Dalian to Seoul, South Korea, and spent 3 days there seeing the sites. Seoul was very developed and had many western restaurants. The people there were very nice and helpful. We were able to get around almost exclusively using public transport and by walking. We then flew from Seoul to Jeju Island off the southern coast of mainland South Korea. It was high season there so there were many tourists with most of them being from China it seemed. We spent 3 days seeing the sites there before flying back to Gimpo Airport in Seoul then taking a 30 minute train ride to Incheon Airport to fly back to China. I found Korea to be much more like Japan than like China. The people were courteous, things were well organized and modern, and the prices were comparable to U.S. prices. I don’t really care that much for Korean food (but Bonnie does) so we compromised and had a few meals at western restaurants.

We flew back to China arriving in Qingdao which is only about an 80 minute flight. Qingdao was very crowded with tourists, dirty, noisy and not so exciting. We were there for 3 days and felt like it was 2 days too many. We were happy to leave there and went to Tai’an via train. Tai Mountain is one of the most famous mountains in China and many emperors went there to seek blessings after they became emperors. We visited Dai Temple the day we arrived which is one of the most famous temples in China. That evening we attended a performance at an outdoor theatre at the foot of the mountain. The performance was about the history of the mountain and about all the famous emperors that had come there seeking blessings for their reign. The stage was very impressive. It was made in the form of stair steps and was about 20 yards wide by about 40 yards tall. It had movable sections and projection of a movie from behind. More than 100 performers could stand on the steps while adding to the film being projected from behind. The next day we set off early to climb the mountain. After 4 hours of tough climbing and a lot of sweating we reached the top at about 10:00 a.m. We climbed about 3500 feet of elevation change. We took the gondola and bus back down since it was so hot and I was so tired. On Thursday, August 8 we took a train to Shanghai and then flew back home to Nanning. It was 24 days of travels and we were happy to be back home. See the pictures by clicking on the link on the right!