My Trip To China

Learning Chinese

2010-08-24T08:39:00.000+01:00

I spent over 5 months in China and really tried to learn Chinese language on my own but it was really hard. Of course I learned basics, few sentences in mandarin but still I was using my husband in order to communicate with people there. Now, after many months back I decided to learn it hard so by my next visit I will be able to talk to people and which is more important to understand them:) Please cross your fingers for that...
First of all I have started use my cd with dialogs to learn sentences and repeat them millions of time. Believe me it is the best way to learn accent and pronunciation. Although I know I will never get rid of my natural accent. Lets be honest:)
Second I use nciku.com website (thanks be to Internet) to learn 5 characters a day, well maybe less:) In China it is crucial to recognize some of the characters (i.e. toilet sign) otherwise you will not be able to find anything.
Also I have few sentence cards with me so I can memorize Chinese sentences more efficient.
Last but not least I always try to force my husband to speak to me in Chinese:) I think it is good to have native speaker around you when you try to learn foreign language.

Karaoke (KTV) in China

2010-08-19T14:02:00.003+01:00

Karaoke Television in short KTV is the most popular form of entertainment in China and I must say that this is fun. Almost every young person there wants to become a singer and the rest of them just love to sing.
I have been in several KTV's with my husband's friends and even though I didn't know any of the Chinese songs it was still fun watching people having great time.
In Shenyang during the night on almost every street there are colorful lights flashing and inviting to KTV's. Usually those buildings look like hotels with many private rooms and some of them have even little professional studios so anybody can record an album! I know crazy:)
When you want to go Karaoke prepare to be shocked! First of all at the desk you get the number of a room. Later you go to snack shop in order to buy crazy stuff such as mustard peanuts, dry squid, maybe some 'normal' sunflower seeds and of course beer,and after that you are ready to rock!!!

Bargain guide

2009-02-27T10:23:00.004Z

This post I would like dedicate to all tourists visiting China;) I want to let you know that when buying anything there one pays at least from triple up to ten times more than one should! That is the truth but it doesn't mean that we have to pay so much. When I came to China I was transferring every price to Euro and I thought how cheap it is here but of course it doesn't work that way. The thing is tourists don't bargain so actually it is our fault that we pay more;) That is why I really want to emphasize on this topic here. So don't let people to rip you of even on little things as food!
First of all don't let sales people see that you really like the product. They will use that information against you. The best thing is to have calm face while buying on the market.
Secondly let them know that the product you want to buy is not perfect. For example it is in wrong colour or threads are coming out etc. In this case sales people usually will give some discount. Another thing is Chinese sellers always give higher price to foreigners so it is better for us to ask for 'onest' price at the beginning.
Finally I want to give you the most important advice. Never ever believe sales people! They will tell you anything you want to hear (including lies) just to sell the product. Salespeople can shout and even curse at you but don't give up:) Even if you will not be able to buy the thing you like at one stand you can always buy it in the next one...

At the end there is a story from the souvenir shop nearby the Shenyang Forbidden City. I was there with my husband just to have a look. I wasn't planning to buy anything but I noticed small paper fan which I liked very much. Sales people at the stand were very excited about it and they were telling me the price of it. It was 45 Yuen. I new back then that it is too much even though it is about 4.50 Euro. By the way I could buy 2 lunches for it:) Anyway I said no to that and I wanted to walk away. But the sales people didn't give up and start giving me lower prices. My husband joined me then telling them I don't want it because they don't give me the normal price but much higher. They got a little angry but at the end while we were almost walking out from the market they called us back that we can have the fan for 15 Yuen...

Harbin - Oriental Paris

2009-02-03T11:46:00.009Z

One of our goals of coming to China was a trip to Harbin city which is the capital of the Heilongjiang Province in Northeast China.

Harbin is one of the sources of ice and snow culture in the world. It is located in Northeast China under the direct influence of the cold winter wind from Siberia. Average -20 degrees Celsius is the temperature in winter.

The city is well-known for its Russian and European-influenced architecture. The great example of it is the Russian Orthodox church, St. Sophia Cathedral.

In the city there are many ice sculptures illuminated with colorful lights which really made great impression in the night.

"Ice City", which is other name for Harbin, is well known for its long and cold winter. Normally I wouldn’t want to go somewhere cold but this city is famous for its display of ice sculptures in the winter and I always wanted to visit the annual Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival.

In front of Ice City in Harbin

We went to Harbin for two days at the beginning of February although the official start date of the festival is January 5th. It was still the spring festival time but we were able to get tickets for a train.

Ice and Snow World was amazing but it was enormously freezing in there. We had to borrow coats from a friend who lives in Harbin because we would freeze to death I guess. Anyway you can see on the pictures that Dawei is having an army coat and I have a fur (poor animal by the way). The thing is that our friend's mum wouldn’t let us go in our regular clothes:) so we had to wear those "funny" clothes. I am glad she did that although.

The Ice City in Harbin

Dawei in the Ice City

I am on a huge chessboard in the Ice City

A Castle in the Ice City in Harbin

As you can see on pictures the place was huge and it had illuminated full size buildings made from blocks of ice. We even went to a huge ice slide which was a bit scary for me, specially finishing part when a seat made from metal went suddenly up and I landed on my back. Anyway worth to try;)

Spring Festival in Shenyang

2009-01-26T13:06:00.005Z

This year the Chinese New Year of Ox began on 26^th of January. In Shenyang you could hear firecrackers every evening one week before that event. At my husbands home everybody was cleaning and preparing all the food and decorations such as red lanterns, papercuts and red signs with short poems which are hung around the door. Also outside you could and still can feel holiday atmosphere. In almost every window there are red lanterns and flashing lights. More over it was snowing a couple of days before so snow covered everything. I almost felt like on Christmas Day.

At the New Years Eve we had family reunion dinner in our grandparents place. At midnight we ate dumplings, drank and enjoyed family atmosphere in front of TV. In TV program there were songs about China and even Chinese astronauts said wishes for New Year which was funny but hey nobody cares as we have New Year!

Before midnight we went outside to let off some firecrackers like many people at that time. I must say that we polluted the whole area in front of our building but the fun we had you cannot compare to anything.

Also at midnight my husband and I had to bow to elder family members and give money as a present to children. There is a funny thing about giving and receiving money as you cannot accept that kind of present and on the other hand you have to insist on giving it. In general the whole family members scream at each other and in the end you give it and somebody has to take it:)

Now we will celebrate New Year of the ox for another 15 days. Guo nian hao 过年好 everybody!!!

Zoo in Beijing

2009-01-23T13:49:00.006Z

Another thing that I wanted always see in

China

is the Giant Panda so Beijing Zoo was on our list.

The Giant Panda (dàxióngmāo, in my translation: big bear cat) is a mammal classified in the bear family, native to central-western and southwestern China.

It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. And of course everybody knows that it eats mostly bamboo.

When I first saw this amazing creature I felt so happy. After a while I felt sad that this beautiful animal is endangered and it can disappear from planet even though scientists work hard not to let that happen.

The Giant Panda lives only in a few mountain ranges in central China, in Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces.

In recent decades the Giant Panda is a national symbol for the country. Chinese government sends Pandas to other countries like Japan as a sign of friendship etc. Even in last Olympic Games one of the mascots represented Panda.

Temple of Heaven in Beijing

2009-01-20T13:47:00.006Z

As we were staying in Beijing we wanted to visit many famous places. Unfortunately we had to choose few only among loads of sites which are worth to see over there. We picked The Temple of Heaven (天坛). In order to get there we took a subway from our hotel. We often took a subway in Beijing as there is huge traffic.

This complex of Taoist buildings was visited by the Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties for annual ceremonies of prayer to Heaven for good harvest.

In order to get to the Temple of Heaven the ticket needs to be bought. More over to see all buildings in the complex 3 tickets are required or one, more expensive, for all the places there.

Anyway the Temple consists of three main groups of constructions and it is surrounded by a park. In this beautiful park there are a lot of people hanging out. It is so nice to see people despite of their age exercising, dancing or playing Jiànzi 毽子 (kicking shuttlecock - picture on the right). I have never seen that in Poland or Ireland on that scale:)

The Temple of Heaven from the North side

The main building is The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests (祈年殿). It is a circular building, built on three levels of marble stone base, where the Emperor prayed for good harvests. The building is completely wooden, with no nails. It is very impressive. It looked for me like floating in the air.

The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests

The Imperial Vault of Heaven (皇穹宇) is surrounded by a smooth circular wall, the Echo Wall, that can transmit sounds over large distances. We checked that and it really works. You can hear clearly a person from the opposite part of the wall. It was very exciting!

The Echo Wall in the background

Forbidden City in Beijing

2009-01-16T12:43:00.013Z

The Forbidden City in Beijing was the most impressing site I have ever seen in my life. It is vast and beautiful, and well preserved. I am not surprised that Emperors lived there. The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dyansty. It was the home of the Emperor and his household and the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government.

The palace which was built in XV century covers 720,000 square meters. It is surrounded by high city wall and a wide moat. The wall is pierced by gates on each side. To the south, there is the most famous gate called Tiananmen Gate, which is decorated with a portrait of Mao Zedong in the centre and two placards to the left and right: "Long Live the People's Republic of China" and "Long live the Great Unity of the World's Peoples". The Tiananmen Gate connects the Forbidden City precinct with well-known Tiananmen Square.

Tiananmen Sq in Beijing

We began our visiting from the Tiananmen Sq like many other tourists. We passed many gates, halls and even gardens inside the museum. Many of them names I don’t remember but there is a handy way to know them all when you are over there. You can rent a small device, a guide, for only 40 Yuen. They have this guide even in Polish which was a huge surprise for me.

Anyway, if you want to see ALL in there prepare yourself to spend all day on this visit. We had been there only a half day and we had to choose places where we want to go. For example I really wanted to see an exhibition of terracotta soldiers in one of the halls as I don’t know when I will go to Xi’an so after all we selected only few halls to go into. We skipped some of paintings exhibitions.

Forbidden City in Beijing

Inside the Forbidden City

I loved the Imperial Garden over there very much. It was small but it consisted of various landscaping elements (trees, rocks, water etc). It was a very relaxing place although there were many people.

The other thing that will always remind me of The Forbidden City is the roof decoration on the roof ridge. The more creatures on the roof the highest status of the building is like on the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Very beautiful creatures they are;)

Imperial Garden in the Firbidden City

Roof decorations in the background

The Forbidden City is surrounded on three sides by imperial gardens. One of them is Beihai Park on the north-west side which is centered on a lake. We planned to go there after visiting the Forbidden City but we changed our mind and took tricycle in order to see Mongolian Hutong area of the city where Genghis Khan used to live.

Beihai Park

The Great Wall of China

2009-01-14T13:40:00.009Z

In front of Badaling sector of the Great Wall

After one day staying in Beijing we were asked by many people on the streets if we want to go for a trip to see The Great Wall. I was prepared to pay around 150 Yuen per person for that pleasure as I checked on internet at home but since there is winter we were able to get tickets for a hundred Yuen per person. I thought that we were so lucky but later on we found out that some Chinese people from the same trip paid 50 Yuen per person. This annoyed me a lot all the time we stayed in Beijing!! People cheat on everything but I wasn’t going to write about it here…
As everybody knows The Great Wall of China (长城; Chángchéng) is a series of stone and earthen fortifications built many centuries ago in order to protect Chinese Empire from attacks.

We visited the Great Wall at Badaling 八达岭 (Eight Prominent Peaks) sector, located at Yanqing County 70 km northwest of Beijing. It is the first section of the Great Wall to be opened to tourists. It was built in 1571 and was repaired in 1957. It is considered the best preserved wall construction. The section is about 5 km long with 19 watchtowers. There were many shops and sellers around which made the place commercialized. And I must say that sellers in there were like flies. You hardly could get rid of them. All of them want you to buy souvenirs over there. We climbed the left part of the Badaling wall which is steeper but gives a better scenery of the wall. Going down was even harder than going up. I will never forget that feeling when I was up there. We took many weird and funny pictures there:) It was amazing. I wish that all parts of The Great Wall were preserved as good as Badaling wall.

My warrior at the Great Wall

And a princess itself on a camel..

Trip to Beijing

2009-01-10T03:38:00.004Z

Everybody knows Beijing so I don’t have to write an introduction about it :)

Main goals of our trip to Beijing were getting visa to Poland, climbing Great Wall, seeing Panda and visiting Forbidden City and we had to do all those things in one week. All went well.

We took a train from Shenyang to Beijing in the night so we could save one night in Beijing hotels and ticket was much cheaper than for fast train during the day. Of course I couldn’t sleep for almost all the time we were on the train and I couldn’t move anywhere as we had bought top beds in a compartment so I played games on my phone to kill the time. Anyway I survived. The next day I was very tired but fortunately on that day we planed applying for polish visa only so it wasn’t so bad after all.

Apart from the Great Wall, Pandas and Forbidden City we had a chance to see The Temple of Heaven, Hutong areas, the Bird Nest and the Water Cube in Beijing which I will describe with my own words in new posts later.

In general trip to Beijing was OK but I was happy leaving this city after one week. The city is too big!!! Streets have no ends and local people are not friendly at all. I think it is great for tourists not for living. Well, that is my humble opinion…

Jilin City

2009-01-01T05:50:00.016Z

Jilin City (吉林市) is located in Jilin Province in North of China. It is famous of its big rime ice on the trees around the Songhua River. The rime ice is a natural phenomenon that occurs every year during January and February.

Unfortunately we haven't seen the rime ice there as we didn't go in the morning to the banks of the river. I think I would freeze to death if I did that! More than - 20 degrees. No thanks!

As the matter of fact I don’t know how I managed to go out for our little trips there. It was so cold! And now we are planning to go to Harbin after Chinese New Year which is more in the North than Jilin and I don’t know how will I survive;) but of course I want to see famous ice sculptures there. Well, I think it is worth. Don’t you think?

By the river in Jilin (my nose is about to fell off)

In Jilin City we visited North Hill Park (Bei Shan) and Dragon Pool Mountain Park.

There is a legend about the Dragon Pool that Dragon was catched by the Monk and chained to the Pool. When a dragon comes back to the land there will be flood.

In front of gate to Bei Shan

Temple on Bei Shan

Dragon Pool in Jilin

Jinan in Shandong Province

2008-12-28T05:14:00.009Z

Jinan (济南) is the capital of Shandong province in China. It is called a "City of Springs" because of the numerous artesian springs. It is known also because of the lakes, and the weeping willows that grow along the water.

Dawei's third grandpa and grandma, who live in Jinan, took us around the city to show us famous springs. Near the springs there were lines of people waiting to get some spring water into containers. We drank water from one of the springs just to check the taste and I must say that water was fresh and cold. For water drinkers Jinan is an excellent spot:)

Trying to make a wish with a coin

Water in Baotu Spring Park

Later on we went to The Baotu Spring Park, which is the most popular of the springs in the City. "Baotu" (趵突) means "jumping and leaping" in Chinese. As you can see on the pictures below water in the spring pool looks like boiling. It is constantly moving and when you look at it for few minutes you don't want to look at other things anymore. At least that what they claimed on the tablet beside the spring;) The spring was visited by the Emperor Qian Long of the Qing Dynasty in XVIII century. A tablet with the Emperor's handwriting "Baotu Spring" has since been erected beside the spring pool.

Baotu Spring in Jinan

Other notable sites in the city are the Five Dragon Pool (五龙潭) near the Baotu Spring Park and the Black Tiger Springs (黑虎泉) on the southern city moat which we also had a chance to see.

Beside the Black Tiger Springs in Jinan

Hangzhou

2008-12-27T05:45:00.042Z

Hangzhou (杭州) is the capital of Zhejiang province and is famous for its beautiful natural scenery, with the West Lake (Xī Hú, 西湖) as the most well-known location in China.

The city was a capital of the Southern Song Dynasty in 12th century.

The Venetian Marco Polo visited Hangzhou in the late 13th century and in his book he refers to the city as "beyond dispute the finest and the noblest in the world."

We stayed there for few days in November 2008 and we definitely are going back there again maybe sometime during summer. The city is so beautiful with its all historic relics and of course eye-catching nature.

Hangzhou is a great mystic place for holidays and people there are so honest and friendly. Both my husband and I were very pleased to stay there.

One of Hangzhou's most popular sights is West Lake which we saw on the first day. The lake covers an area of 6 square kilometers and includes some of Hangzhou's most famous historic and scenic places. We climbed hills around the lake but probably we should visit famous Buddhist temples instead like everyone else was doing. Anyway I didn’t regret that decision as we had great time.

West Lake in Hangzhou

Somewhere around the lake...

We of course went to Old China Street on He Fang Street where there are a lot of old style shops offering various kinds of souvenirs including silk and famous Longjing Tea. We bought some tea there as a gift for our relatives but later on some local people told us that we can buy better longjing tea in a local market from farmers as the one we bought already is only for tourists. Well, it is typical but at least we found out soon enough to buy good tea :)

Tea shop in Hangzhou

On He Fang Street in Hangzhou

The other place worth to see in Hangzhou is Xixi National Wetland Park located at the west part of the city. XiXi Wetland has a history of more than 1,800 years.

The park is densely crisscrossed with many watercourses, among which there are various ponds and lakes. We spent there whole day and we also took a boat there which was very interesting experience for us. The park itself is divided into few parts which most of them are for free. It is worth to take binoculars as there are many birds to see!

In a bamboo forest

View on the park

On the boat

Beiling Park in Shenyang

2008-12-24T05:07:00.026Z

Beiling Park (tomb of Huang Taiji) is the biggest park in Shenyang which covers an area of 330 million sq meters and was built in 1634.
It takes about 20 minutes from the main entrance to the the Red Gate and it costs 10 yuen to get to the park.

Some people got little electric bus to the Red Gate but we decided to take a walk although it was freezing cold. This place must be beautiful in summer with all trees green.

Entrance to Beiling Park in Shenyang

Zhao Ling can be divided into three parts:

1. In the first part of the park from the large monument at the entrance to the Red Gate we saw marble pillars, stone lions, bridges, stone arches, many sculptures of dragons, tigers, lions, horses, elephants, unicorns, camels, turtles and many other buildings. I took loads of pictures there but of course I am not able to place them all here:) Anyway it is worth to see the place.

Marble pillar in Beiling Park in Shenyang

2. Central part from the Red Gate to the door of tomb of Huang Taiji. The biggest atraction for me in here were old pine trees which gave the whole place distinctive look. To get to that part we had to pay extra 60 yuen each for tickets. Behind the Red Gate there was almost nobody (tourist season was over I guess) so we had the whole place for ourselves.

In front of Red Gate in Beiling Park

3. Zhao Mausoleum (North Tomb) - the tomb of Qing Taizong Huangtaiji and empress Boerjijite. The building combinines styles of Manchu nationality and Han nationality. Behind the building there is the tomb - manmade hill.

Qing Zhao Tomb

Shanghai

2008-12-23T13:32:00.009Z

I always wanted to go to Shanghai (上海), the largest city in China but unfortunately we have been there only for 2 nights and have seen only the Bund by the bank of the Huangpu River and the 'Yuyuan Garden', a traditional garden in the Jiangnan style.
First city atraction we saw after landing in Shanghai airport was 'Yuyuan Garden'. It is really a nice place with all those small shops, little streets around and tea house in the middle, created only for tourists. There was a lot of people from all around the world and for the first time I felt relief because nobody was looking at me! I know this is silly observation but after Shenyang and Jilin where people stop talking when I am entering the restaurant;) it was a good feeling.
Shanghai is huge, fast and of course living in here is very expensive, especially for tourists. All prices are doubled or tripled for foreigners and usualy there is no option for barganing. Good I had support of my chinese husband who could get some presents cheaper;)

Yuyuan Garden in Shanghai

Yuyuan Garden by night

On the second day we went to see 'The Oriental Pearl Tower' which is located in modern Pudong district. We took a boat on Huangpu River to have better look at the Tower and other modern skyscrapers. We had great time even though the weather wasn't good.

By boat on Huangpu River

Pudong district in Shanghai

Chinese market

2008-12-23T13:30:00.007Z

Shopping is the most adventurous thing here particularly for foreigners.

For me shopping in a food market was the most interesting thing of all! You can find here anything including alive silkworms, frogs and frozen sharks, and other stuff which I don’t even know names of in my mother language.

Buying clothes and shoes is a totally different thing. I was trying to buy nice shoes for winter and it was really hard to get my size (39) in women’s section. Also I had to buy some clothes in size XL which in Europe would be too big for me as I wear size M. But I must say that in China there are so many choices in shops and different cities that I think it will be very hard for me to go back to small Dublin :)

Dawei in a fruit market

Silkworms

There is one catch in here money wise. Be aware of that sellers will charge you double or even triple times for products if you are a foreigner. Thank God you can always bargain and if you are good in that you can get a fair price. Of course I am in very good position as my Chinese husband always can help me out with bargaining. We bought many little presents for my family for much cheaper price and I know that if I was alone I would pay much more for them.

Although when we visited Beijing I was shocked that they wanted me to take a taxi for 100 Yuen from the train station to the hotel that we booked when it should costs only less than 20 Yuen! I guess that a lot of rich tourists from US would pay for it but come on it is like cheating!!! People just don’t realize that. Maybe because of that I hate Beijing. It happened many times there that they wanted me to pay more for things even in a fruit stalls on the street!!! Mentality of Beijiners is so sick in this matter. In Shanghai I didn’t feel as annoyed about this thing as in Beijing.

Counting 1 to 10 in Chinese

2008-12-23T13:29:00.004Z

Did you know that Chinese people count different on their hand? Well, this was very confusing for me when I was still learning numbers in Chinese and I was trying to guess number from somebody's gesture. See below how do they show numbers from 1 to 10 on their hands:)

1 (一）

2 （二）

3 （三）

4 （四）

5 （五）

6 （六）

7 (七）

8 （八）

9 （九）

10 （十）

My Family

2008-11-14T02:26:00.011Z

Chinese names are really hard for me to learn and remember. In here people don't just call each other first names. They usually give kinship terms such as little sister, big brother, elder uncle and so on. So in China I am not called Monika. I am xi fu 媳妇 (daughter-in-law) or lao po 老婆 (wife). Only when you are the youngest they will call your first name.
This is the list of names I had to learn in order to communicate with my family. Don't you think it is too complicated? They are still names of my husband's friends left to remember...

ma 妈 – mother
ba 爸 – father
lao 姥 – grandmother on mother's side
lao ye 姥爷 – grandfather on mother's side
da jiu 大舅 – elder uncle on mother's side, da jiu ma 大舅妈 – elder uncle's wife
da yi 大姨 – elder aunt on mother's side, da yi fu 大姨夫 – elder aunt's husband
jie 姐 – lit. elder sister, here da yi's daughter, jie fu 姐夫 – elder sister's husband, Ma Yi Ming – first name of their 2 years old son
lao jiu 姥舅 – elder uncle on mother's side, lao jiu ma 姥舅妈 – elder uncle's wife, Tong Tong – first name of their 14 years old son
er shu 二叔 – second uncle on father's side, er shen 二婶 – uncle's wife
san shu 三叔 – third uncle on father's side, san shen 三婶 - uncle's wife
si shu 四叔 - fourth uncle on father's side, si shen 四婶 - uncle's wife

My chinese family from Shenyang

Shenyang

2008-11-13T07:29:00.009Z

I live in Shenyang, my husband's home city. Just want to give you some information about Shenyang 沈阳 "the north side of Shen River" in Liaoning Province. It is the largest city in northeastern China. It is located around 635 km from Beijing 北京 the capital city. Shenyang has long been reputed as "the birthplace for one dynasty and the capital for two emperors". In 1625, Nuerhachi, the first emperor of Qing dynasty, moved its capital here, and renamed it Shengjing. It was the capital of the Qing Dynasty until the relocation of the capital to Beijing in 1644. During the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), Shenyang known then as Mukden was the site of the Battle of Mukden from on 19 February 1905 – 10 March 1905. The Mukden Incident (18 September 1931), which gave the Japanese the pretext to create the Manchukuo state, took place near Shenyang. During the Manchukuo era (1932-1945) the city was called Fengtian. During the Japanese occupation, Shenyang was developed into a heavy industry center. Soviet forces occupied Shenyang in early August 1945 on the surrender of Japan. The Soviets were replaced by the Nationalist Chinese. During the Chinese Civil War, Shenyang remained a Kuomintang stronghold from 1946–1948. Since 1949, Shenyang became one of the most important heavy industry centers of China.

Middle Street in Shenyang (Zhong Jie)

In Shenyang there are around 7 milion people. There are a lot of minorities living here such as Koreans or even Russians. Maybe that is why when they see me they think I am Russian. By the way there are almost no non Asian looking people here so everybody stare at me. This is annoying most of the times but I think I will get use to that eventually. Nothing I can do unfortunately...

We stay in Huanggu District (皇姑区/皇姑區 Huánggū Qū) of the city with my husband’s family. Huanggu District is the site of the large, historical tomb of Huang Taiji (of the Qing Dynasty), called Beiling park 北陵公園. Beiling Park was the first city attraction I saw in Shenyang and I must say that I was impressed.

Beiling Park in Shenyang

Traffic in Shenyang

2008-11-09T05:03:00.017Z

Two weeks are gone and I still cannot get use to the traffic in Shenyang. First thing that I noticed when I came here was that all the streets are very wide and very long. It is total madness to cross the street!! You can see the video below how cars, bicycles, tricycle, motorbikes and people are trying to go all at the same time. I have never seen such a mess. In general it looks like as there are no rules on the roads. Even tough pedestrians have a green light and can cross the street they still need to watch out for cars and bikes coming from right hand side. Moreover Chinese don’t use pavements for walking! They usually use both sides of the actual street and it doesn’t matter that there is a lot of cars. On the other hand cars can be found driving on the footpaths and bike lanes. They usually beep on people to move from their way!