Adventures in Guangzhou!

Next to the "Friendship Bridge" is the remains of the original bridge spanning the two sides, destroyed in 1950 by the good ol' U.S. of A. Though the Koreans have dismantled their half, the Chinese have corrected theirs into a museum of sorts. At the very edge on the land side is an amusing monument of soldiers heading off to war with the caption "For Peace." Gotta love it.

Walking to the very edge on the water side is sort of interesting because you can still see shrapnel and holes from the original mortars, bombs, and bullets. Once again, there's not much to see on the Korean side--a factory, an abandoned ferris wheel, a couple of random military buildings, and maybe an occasional local. I decided to take the obligatory "I'm at the Korean border" picture and asked a fellow tourist to help me out. I'm not quite sure if it was my bad luck or if a majority of Chinese people are simply bad at taking photos, but this was my worst of the trip (see my flickr site for proof). The guy took my camera and just took a photo at a 45 degree angle. No idea why. This was just one of many, as well. Traveling by myself, I had various other tourists take pics of me that all came out like crap. I just don't get it.

After gazing across the river for a while, I walked back to shore. I considered taking one of the speedboat rides to get even closer to the other side, but I opted against it. The PiA-ers told me that their students informed them of something bizarre. Apparently when the conditions are right and enough tourists are out, N. Koreans will swim out to meet boats in the river and Chinese tourists will "pet" the swimmers and give them a coin or two. Bizarre, huh? What kind of tourism is that?

The only other incident of note was when I poked my head into a souvenir shop. They have enough N. Korean kitsch to satisfy anyone but I wasn't really into it. One of the store employees was trying to push some N. Korean snack foods on me and tried to tell me that Sunkist Orange candies were from Pyongyang. I laughed and said they were American but she wasn't hearing it. Finally I took the package and pointed out the California address and she backed off, tail between her legs.

After a quick four hour bus ride, I arrived in Dalian, the most prosperous and modern city of the northeast. The city is surrounded by beaches on the outside, and massive skyscrapers on the inside. Pulling into downtime, it felt like we could have been in any new European or American city. It was somewhat strange. Luckily Dan was right downtime in Victory Square where I pulled in and so we met up and headed out to their school. The technological university where Dan, Danny, and Vanessa teach is a bit outside of downtown so I got to see a decent section of the city as we headed out.

After dropping my stuff and showering, Dan, Danny and I headed out for KBBQ. After dinner by the campus we headed back into the city to a place called "Noah's Ark," a popular bar with live local music. Very cool! I taught the boys how to play the dice game and did my best to boldly lie everytime. Danny had to teach the next day so he headed back early but Dan was free so we continued on to "2046," probably the one and only club in Dalian. It was loud, it was crowded, it was expensive, it had some questionable clientele, and it was a lot of fun.