Bonnie and Lou Kravitz flying their kites
Inflatable arches indicate a wedding will take place here...
A stretched limousine leading a parade of wedding vehicles
The wedding couple
A European-style district downtown
Some of Dalian's ultra-modern skyscrapers
A statue of hurdlers at a park
A view down to one of Dalian's beachesLocated in Manchuria, in the northeastern part of China, Dalian’s long-ago Russian and Japanese influences remain even today. And special areas of the city still showcase many of those remaining European buildings. This makes for an interesting non-Chinese looking city.
In 1984, our children, Suzanne and Greg, were with us on our only other visit to Dalian. Two of that trip’s highlights were a home visit with a local family, and a photo stop at the Dalian Zoo…where we saw several pandas. We decided to “revisit” the pandas. So, we took the ship’s shuttle to the local Friendship Store (Chinese chain stores owned and operated by the government). There we found a queue of taxi cabs with a single interpreter helping to line up the taxi drivers with customers. We quickly discovered that, without the interpreter, we were pretty much on our own after we left the curb. All the drivers spoke only Chinese, and did not understand a word of English. Fortunately, we had a Chinese gentleman on board the Mariner write some city highlights (including the zoo) on a city map…complete with both English and Chinese names. So, with our map in hand and non-English-speaking driver in the front seat, our taxi headed for the Forest Zoo and its one remaining very old panda. The driver was fun, even though we usually communicated with him through his colleague over their cell phones. Our driver’s name was Chee, and he wanted us to see everything that Dalian had to offer. Our map was an excellent tourist map, with photos, so we were able to follow our route using it.
Traveling through the downtown area, the biggest highlight was the never-ending stream of stretch limousines with huge flower sprays across the front bumper or on their windows…often covering 90% of the driver’s window. The lead limos were followed by several smaller black limos, which were followed by black sedans all decorated with matching pink, red or white ribbons tied to their side mirrors. Then, a couple of blocks later, we’d see another parade of decorated limos carrying another wedding party. Most hotels had blow-up two-story red arches, in front of one or two of their entrances, announcing that a wedding (or weddings) were to take place there. It was Saturday and we must have seen more than 40 of these parades. Jerry heard later that many of the limos had no one inside them but a driver! It appears that the longer the length of the parade indicated the amount of wealth of the family. Amazing! We did see one couple sitting on the back of a small convertible, so Jerry was able to snap a couple of photos of them. We forgot to mention that all parades were preceded by an open-ended SUV that was video taping their particular processional.
But, back to our panda: we were told (and so far everyone has accepted) that U.S. dollars or credit cards were fine in China. The Forest Zoo accepted neither. Our driver could not help us, even with his associate on the other end of his cell phone. After about 10 minutes of attempting to communicate through our Chinese-speaking driver to the Chinese-speaking ticket booth attendants…we were still waiting and not understanding the exact problem. Then, a lovely young Chinese girl stepped forward and asked if she could help. She spoke quite good English, and she was great! Come to find out, she was from Arkansas and her name was Casper. The money, it turned out, wasn’t the major issue we had to contend with. It seems that the panda was on the far end of the zoo…and would require at least an hour to get to, snap a few photos, and return to the front gate. Due to extremely low tides at the Mariner’s dock, our time in Dalian was cut short in order for our ship to get out of the harbor before low tide. So…we only had a half hour to get the panda photos taken. No panda or Siberian tiger pictures. Darn!
So, we moved on and enjoyed a scenic tour of the beach areas, the International Exhibition Center, the aquarium, lovely flowering squares, and many areas of kite flying. Cruise Specialists guests Glenn and Melodie Petry and Bonnie and Lou Kravitz flew kites on their ship’s tours, but we never spotted them. They have their beautiful long-tailed kites safely wrapped in tubes to take home. All said that their kite flying experience was great fun.
Back on board, we both had haircuts and prepared for a full evening: Virtuoso party for Segment 3, a private party and Chinese dinner in Latitudes celebrating Gayle and Nick Carter’s 27th anniversary. They are a great, fun couple and we enjoy laughing and many fun hours with them. You’ll hear more about the Carters and see photos, as we tour the Terra Cotta Warriors in Xian, and the Li River with them (and others) next week. Off to Shanghai!
In 1984, our children, Suzanne and Greg, were with us on our only other visit to Dalian. Two of that trip’s highlights were a home visit with a local family, and a photo stop at the Dalian Zoo…where we saw several pandas. We decided to “revisit” the pandas. So, we took the ship’s shuttle to the local Friendship Store (Chinese chain stores owned and operated by the government). There we found a queue of taxi cabs with a single interpreter helping to line up the taxi drivers with customers. We quickly discovered that, without the interpreter, we were pretty much on our own after we left the curb. All the drivers spoke only Chinese, and did not understand a word of English. Fortunately, we had a Chinese gentleman on board the Mariner write some city highlights (including the zoo) on a city map…complete with both English and Chinese names. So, with our map in hand and non-English-speaking driver in the front seat, our taxi headed for the Forest Zoo and its one remaining very old panda. The driver was fun, even though we usually communicated with him through his colleague over their cell phones. Our driver’s name was Chee, and he wanted us to see everything that Dalian had to offer. Our map was an excellent tourist map, with photos, so we were able to follow our route using it.
Traveling through the downtown area, the biggest highlight was the never-ending stream of stretch limousines with huge flower sprays across the front bumper or on their windows…often covering 90% of the driver’s window. The lead limos were followed by several smaller black limos, which were followed by black sedans all decorated with matching pink, red or white ribbons tied to their side mirrors. Then, a couple of blocks later, we’d see another parade of decorated limos carrying another wedding party. Most hotels had blow-up two-story red arches, in front of one or two of their entrances, announcing that a wedding (or weddings) were to take place there. It was Saturday and we must have seen more than 40 of these parades. Jerry heard later that many of the limos had no one inside them but a driver! It appears that the longer the length of the parade indicated the amount of wealth of the family. Amazing! We did see one couple sitting on the back of a small convertible, so Jerry was able to snap a couple of photos of them. We forgot to mention that all parades were preceded by an open-ended SUV that was video taping their particular processional.
But, back to our panda: we were told (and so far everyone has accepted) that U.S. dollars or credit cards were fine in China. The Forest Zoo accepted neither. Our driver could not help us, even with his associate on the other end of his cell phone. After about 10 minutes of attempting to communicate through our Chinese-speaking driver to the Chinese-speaking ticket booth attendants…we were still waiting and not understanding the exact problem. Then, a lovely young Chinese girl stepped forward and asked if she could help. She spoke quite good English, and she was great! Come to find out, she was from Arkansas and her name was Casper. The money, it turned out, wasn’t the major issue we had to contend with. It seems that the panda was on the far end of the zoo…and would require at least an hour to get to, snap a few photos, and return to the front gate. Due to extremely low tides at the Mariner’s dock, our time in Dalian was cut short in order for our ship to get out of the harbor before low tide. So…we only had a half hour to get the panda photos taken. No panda or Siberian tiger pictures. Darn!
So, we moved on and enjoyed a scenic tour of the beach areas, the International Exhibition Center, the aquarium, lovely flowering squares, and many areas of kite flying. Cruise Specialists guests Glenn and Melodie Petry and Bonnie and Lou Kravitz flew kites on their ship’s tours, but we never spotted them. They have their beautiful long-tailed kites safely wrapped in tubes to take home. All said that their kite flying experience was great fun.
Back on board, we both had haircuts and prepared for a full evening: Virtuoso party for Segment 3, a private party and Chinese dinner in Latitudes celebrating Gayle and Nick Carter’s 27th anniversary. They are a great, fun couple and we enjoy laughing and many fun hours with them. You’ll hear more about the Carters and see photos, as we tour the Terra Cotta Warriors in Xian, and the Li River with them (and others) next week. Off to Shanghai!
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