Spring Festival in Shenyang

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!!!

Beiling Park in Shenyang

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.

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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

Chinese market

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.

Shenyang

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

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!

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