Dalian

We've arrived in Dalian by Dain Ferry which curiously enough is flying under a Panamanian flag. The ferry room we slept in was one of the options for economy class. We had a box basically that had a comfortable mattress, firm and the room was warm, maybe almost too warm. It was nice that there was a privacy curtain for each bunk box since there were about 16 of us in there in our cubicles. In the middle of the night the boat was really rocking and reeling. . . it made for interesting dream/nightmares but really was all good. I guess it's like hitting a bad bought of turbulence on an airplane. It was the middle of the night (2 am or so) and thus absolutely pitch black out. If not I would have gone out to the deck to see what kinds of high waves we were in. There were no stars out as it was quite overcast so there would have been nothing to see. . .otherwise you all know me. . . I would have wanted to check it out. I hung out in my cubicle just saying prayers that we wouldn't hit anything unexpectedly or keel over. As there was a ton of cargo boxes/containers in the cargo hold the likelihood of our tipping over was really quite slim but when the the boat was swaying heavily in the night my imagination did really wander. We actually entered through the cargo hold as some of the semi/trucks were "dumping off" and unhitching. There was a TV room on one of the upper decks where we lounged on some reclining chairs, read and ate our picnic dinner during the evening.

In the morning there was a blazing sunrise directly behind us over the South China Sea. It was very windy up on deck due to the combination of the boat's speed and the weather conditions but no lurching about in high waves. It was a rather uneventful docking.

An accommodating local bus driver looked at my book, as I pointed to the train station, and he waved us aboard. We had a good look at part of the northern part of the peninsular city as we wound through old and new areas of Dalian. Our friendly driver waved us off near the train station and we found our way there easily. . . the toughest part was figuring out that we just had to dodge traffic with the locals to cross and no it's not like Vietnam where you just cross at a steady pace. . . here you better have your eyes on you or squish. We bought tickets for our overnight train to Harbin for tomorrow and searched in circles for a hotel which had no name posted. When we finally found it there were no spots so we ended up happily at a cushy Super 8 and are enjoying the comfort this evening sandwiched between 2 nights of travel.

Though cold we did enjoy some comfort from our new investments, cold weather clothes. . . as you can see. Dalian has great contrasts from local tent-style markets to luxurious high-end shopping malls and everything in between. We enjoyed a little of it all ducking in to drink or food shops along the way to warm up or fill our bellies. Ahhh lucky to travel. Life is good!

Please don't fret about errors, I won't be proofing this entry^^