Date: July 6, 2013
Team: Fam + Snow (Friend)’s Fam
Duration: 15 Days
Type: Road Trip
Agenda: Yantai - Dalian - Harbin - Wudalianchi - Yichun - Daqing - Changchun - Changbai Mountain - Linjiang
SOT:
大家免著驚 - Lo Da You
Love is Blue (any piano version)
I love Freckle - Alan Tam
MOT:
“Arrow” (TV show)
The trip to the north-east of China was the last Chinese trip in my teenage journey pack. Because that year we bought a new car, Audi Q5, we wanted to try a long road trip with it and see how it felt. This time we went to the 3 provinces in the north-east area, Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang. We went to a lot of places, even though not as many as the US or Europe (which will be in 2014). Although around 40% of this trip was spent on our vehicle, we came across many places and they were all different from each other based on their styles, vibes, and stories. From the busy cities to the volcanoes, from the farmlands to the snow mountains. This trip combined urban with countryside and that’s where it got interesting. Let’s go!
Starting from Suzhou, we drove to the harbor in Yantai. We needed to take a ship to go across the ocean in order to reach Dalian:
And here is Dalian:
Here is Laohutan Ocean Park. Due to Ms. Xingxing was sick that day, so we left that couple at the hotel and went to this place which wasn’t in our original plan with my family and Snow. Unfortunately my mom forgot to install the SD card in her camera so we lost half of our photos, sigh.
After that, we were heading to Harbin, a Russian styled city, including Portman restaurant, central street, Songhua River, Flood Control Memorial Tower Square, and the famous Saint Sophia Cathedral (although we weren’t able to enter).
Next was to go view the volcanoes in Wudalianchi, which I heard was the biggest crater in the north-east. Honestly, I knew this was a volcano, but I thought it wouldn’t be interesting until it erupted. Sometimes I wanted to jump in and light it up with a lighter haha:
For the following few days, we temporarily separated with Snow’s family as they were going back to their hometown, Daqing. We headed to the town called Yichun. The best memory this town gave me was actually playing video games at the hostel. Their computer was linked to those game centers outside, so I was able to play them freely. Lucky~
So yeah, Yichun wasn’t that interesting, so after that we went to Daqing and reunited with Snow’s:
Afterwards, we did another separation and went to a city called Changchun, where there’s a Chinese version of Universal Studios - Changchun Movie Wonderland. Even though they were imitating Universal and Disneyland, they had such a huge difference. The movie tech in north-east China didn’t even have the condition to compare with Hollywood. The topic of this park seemed to be showing off their way to make movies. The rides were… questionable, really. However, it was an okay-ish day for us. Changchun in general wasn’t so bad:
Next up, was the juicer - Changbai Mountain. One of the most beautiful snow mountains in China in winter. Although we went there at summer time and there wasn’t any snow, we were able to clearly see the “mirror” inside of the crater - Lake Tianchi, where monsters used to be discovered just like the dinosaur in Loch Ness. Because of that fairy tale, Lake Tianchi had become a famous spot here:
By the way, the design of the route uphill was quite interesting, made me dizzy occasionally.
Linjiang City. I don’t remember much, see it for yourself. One of the photos is the neighborhood of North Korean citizens, across Yalu River, which apparently is the border between China and North Korea. Also, personally I didn't really enjoy Korean cold noodles. It had soup and was sweet and sour, I thought cup noodles in China were way better than this haha..
Alright, that’s it. Reunited with Snow’s family and it’s time to go home!
Next up is the year of 2014, it's gonna be a BIG crazy year!