After my quick stop in Narita Japan, I finally made it to my final destination in Dalian China. My boss has some business down there and we wanted to be sure that the computer network is working on the same standards that his one in Vancouver.
I was greeted by Hodge, Nicole and Paul. After leaving my bags in the office, first thing was to have some lunch
Well, there is not too much that I can tell you for the first five days of my stay down here, basically it was work and work and work. Dalian has 4 national leading open zones: - The Development Zone - The Free Trade Zone - The Hi-Tech Industrial Zone and The Golden Pebble National Holiday Resort.
I spent most of my time on the Hi-Tech Industrial Zone. Dalian has been given many benefits by the Chinese government, including the title of "open-city," (1984) which allows it considerable foreign investment.
Still, I managed to enjoy the local delicacies. As you can see the food is really fresh. The local cuisine heavily depends on variety of fresh seafood and fruits, both abundant in the area.
Finally, Saturday afternoon I managed to have some free time and I did a quick walk around the city. The night before Paul and I walked on Zhongshan Square in the heart of modern city but it was too dark to take good pictures.
A good way to know about a place is visiting the local museums and this time I choose to visit Dalian Huaxia Culture Museum which is located at the basement of the Dalian Modern Museum.
On the basement I saw exhibits from Ming and Qing dynasty but you cannot take pictures. Then it was time to visit the Modern Museum. There are a lot of video and audio displays from where you can learn more about the recent history of the city.
This place was ocuppied by the British in 1858 and returned to the Chinese in the 1880s, Russians and Japanese started to mess around in 1895 during the first Sino-Japanese War.
There is one hall where you can see statues of important atletes and some sculptures depicting important sport achievements.
This is the Iron Bell of Tian De Temple. Cast in the end of Ming Dinasty and the early of Qing Dinasty, this bell was once placed in Tian De Temple, which was built by a Japanese company in Si Er Gou, Dalian in 1919 to wake the workers up early in the morning.
After leaving the museum it was the time for a quick walk on the famous Xinghai Square. The square lies 500 meters north of the seashore of Xinghai Bay and hence named after it. The 45,000 square meters square was completed in 1997 to celebrate the return of Hong Kong to China. The design of the square implies traditional Chinese culture.
Along the central avenue there are dozens of stele lamps. South end of the central avenue is a group of sculpture which records the history of the city. A thousand footprints of the Dalian's citizen are inscribed to imply that Dalian is moving forward.
