Mini Vacation in Dandong

Last weekend Nick and I decided we needed a little vacation from Dalian. We decided to head to Dandong for a night. It is the Chinese city on the North Korean border. Our original plan was to go by bus, but when we got to the station Friday afternoon about 3:30 we found that the last bus had left an hour earlier. Well we had a hotel reservation, and we were really looking forward to getting out of town for a few days so we found another way. For only 30 RMB more per person than the bus we paid to go in a car. There are people that sell seats in their vans so we ended up with 7 other random people in the back of a van and headed to Dandong. It was quite an adventure. I think I've mentioned how crazy people drive in China, but this guy was especially bad. The freeways have lots of tolls on them, so not as many people travel on them so he was going fast!

Well, we made it in one piece to the hotel that was right on the river that divides China and North Korea. It was super cheap, and we had a beautiful view. It is crazy to look down the river. The Chinese side is very developed (I think some one told us Dandong has a population of 2.3 million) with tall apartment buildings, while the Korean side is empty. There are a few buildings you can see during the day, but apparently they were built by the government and no one actually lives in them so there is no electricity there or anything. Anyway, we got in pretty late so we went out for dinner (the one I posted pictures of a few days ago) and then went to bed. The next morning we were up early and ready to go out. We called a taxi driver and ended up getting a pretty nice private tour of Dandong for 2 hours. He drove us all over and was telling us about everything, very informative!

Here's a quick picture summary of our trip.

A picture looking down the river. China on the left and North Korea on the right. Crazy contrast!


In the back of the van that took us to Dandong.


Fishermen. We saw a show about how these fishermen use birds to catch fish before we came to China, but it was crazy to actually see it. Basically they have birds and they tie a string around their throats so they can't swallow. When the birds dive to catch a fish they can only halfway swallow it, then the fishermen haul them up and pull the fish out of their mouths. It was crazy. They also make these cool noises to call the birds as they move down the river. I wish I had a recording of it.


As past of our tour the taxi driver took us through this little town. It is crazy how fast we went from the city to this rural area. It was actually pretty funny, they were staring at us because they don't see too many foreigners and we were staring back at them because we don't see carts like this very often.


Nick with North Korea in the background. We had quite a few pictures like this.


If you squint really hard you can see the eastern end of the Great Wall of China in the background of this picture. We could have toured it, but it was expensive and the driver told us it wasn't worth it. This was my first glimpse of the Great Wall, but I guess I'll have to wait a little longer to climb on it. In the front of the picture you can see a green fence and that marks the border of North Korea. The river in between is neutral, but the North Koreans have a small part of land on the Chinese side of the river where they can launch boats and give people tours. They put up this green fence to mark the boundary. We were just 3 feet away! Apparently it is possible to get a Visa to go on a heavily supervised tour to North Korea, but you have to hang out in Dandong for a few days and now probably isn't the greatest time to be traveling there anyway.

Short story real quick. We were taking pictures by the green fence that marks the border to NK and we looked across the river. I mentioned before how it isn't really developed over there, so there were no buildings, well we saw 2 men in a field and at first glance we just dismissed them as farmers. The taxi driver told us to take a closer look, he said they were snipers watching the border! Sure enough we took a picture and zoomed in on the camera and it became pretty clear they were not out there just farming. Its safe though as long as you don't do anything stupid or try to get too close to the fence.


Here I am on a bridge that went about halfway out into the river. Our taxi driver/tour guide told us that this was a bridge that the Americans bombed during the Korean War. It was pretty cool, because it was farther away from the city we could see a few buildings, houses and cars on the North Korean side. There were people taking boat tours on the river that got closer, but we opted not to do that this trip.


This is the bridge that currently connects NK and Dandong. It looks really pretty at night.


Nick in front of a Chinese looking building in a park. We had a few hours before our bus left to go back to Dalian, so we found this park. It was built on the side of a hill, so we had to hike up to it. It has a really nice view of the city. I wish we had a park like this near our house in Dalian.


The entrance to the park where we went hiking.


It was a really quick trip, but we had fun. I would love to go back in the spring/summer and explore more. I was told by Mona at work that there are lots of fun places to go explore in the mountains around Dandong.

Chinese food

After a couple posts about all the yummy Thanksgiving food we've been enjoying I figured it was time for one on Chinese food. We went on a mini vacation to Dandong this weekend (don't worry pictures/details are coming soon) and we were hungry when we got there. So we walked into a little restaurant off the street. It was delicious!


This is a pumpkin dish. It is the one my friend Mona tried to teach me to make on Thanksgiving. This one turned out better than ours though.... I guess the key is to deep fry the pumpkin first and then add the yellow seasoning stuff later. (Mona kept calling the seasoning duck eggs, but I prefer not to think about that when I eat it.) We didn't have enough oil, or the patience I guess. Ours turned into more of a pumpkin mush. Anyway, the pumpkin at this restaurant was delicious.


This is probably one of my favorite things I've eaten in a Chinese restaurant. It is eggplant with pork stuffed into it where it is sliced, and then deep fried and covered in a sweet and sour type sauce. We need to find a restaurant by our house that will make this pronto. I have eaten more eggplant these last 2 months in China than I could even imagine existed before we moved here. I think I ate it maybe once a year before, and now we eat it several times a week. They cook it so well here. I need to learn a thing or two before we come home.


We finished off our meal with some chow mein. I love eating noodles. I got tired of eating rice pretty quickly here, but I don't seem to ever get tired of noodles.

Don't worry we didn't even come close to finishing all that food. It always amazes me how big portions are here. Especially because they are so cheap. Our whole dinner cost 6 dollars, and we had so much leftover food we probably could have fed another 2 people!

Thanksgiving Round 2

Our official Thanksgiving dinner was Saturday night this year. SInce we are in China, everyone had to work all day on Thanksgiving and it worked out better to do it then. We had a busy day!

We picked up some American friends we met a few weeks ago about 11 am and went out to lunch at a yummy dumpling restaurant recommended to us by a Chinese guy. Then we headed to a holiday bazaar held by the international school that all the kids we know go to. They had a lot of local Chinese artisans who were selling some pretty cool stuff. I got a pretty awesome wall hanging/Christmas decoration. Nick doesn't love it as much as I do, but I think he's grateful I didn't decide I wanted the huge handcarved nativity instead. Here' s a picture:



We then headed to the beach to walk around, but it was a cold miserable day, so that didn't last too long. We had Thanksgiving in the same home where we usually have church. It was so fun! There was a group of about 25 people and so much yummy food. I felt like I was back in the US. We had turkey, ham, candied yams, stuffing, potatoes, and even cranberry sauce. I can't believe somebody found cranberries, but apparently it was a joint effort with everybody looking out for them at every store around town.

Nick's favorite part of the night came next. Somebody decided it would be fun to celebrate Thanksgiving with a big fireworks show, and since fireworks are so cheap here in China they really went all out. Our dinner was cleverly named "Turkey and Pie-rotechnics." The show went on for about 20 minutes and then we headed back for pie. Nick laughed because I ate 4 different pieces, but I don't get pie that often and it was too hard to choose between all the yummy flavors. I ended up with chocolate pecan pie, banana cream pie, pumpkin cheesecake and apple pie. It was all so good!

We had a great Thanksgiving even though we are far from home. We are so grateful to have met so many wonderful people out here in China and for the chance to eat a little American comfort food once in awhile. I don't think Thanksgiving will ever feel complete for Nick again without fireworks though, China is spoiling the little pyro in him.

Thanksgiving

I never thought the first Thanksgiving dinner I would have to host would be in China, but after 2 frantic days it turned out pretty well. I think all my Chinese coworkers enjoyed the food, and if they didn't then they faked it really well! We had quite a bit of food and I think it overwhelmed some of them. Western food is heavier than what they are used too. Here's our menu:

Chicken breasts
Mashed potatoes
Steamed carrots with honey
Stuffing
Fried Pumpkin
Fruit Salad
Green Beans with Bell Peppers and Onions

and pumpkin pie to finish!

It was quite a hectic night, work was actually really slow for me today, but the minute I got off my friend Mona and I raced to the tram to get here before the pumpkin pie and stuffing were supposed to be delivered. A minute after we ran in the door I got a call from the bakery telling me they were stuck in traffic and wouldn't get there for almost an hour! So we spent that time prepping all the other food. It is hard work planning a dinner that big with only 2 little burners and no oven. Thankfully everyone was really understanding when some of the dishes weren't served super hot. I guess they don't know any better.

Soon after we got started everyone else started arriving bringing lots of random Chinese snack food which will probably lay around the house for months and lots of helping hands. My little kitchen was packed full of people trying to be helpful. It was fun though. Some of the girls I work with are really good cooks, and others were trying to pick up some cooking tips.

Here's some pictures from the night:


Lee and Mona helping prepare all the food. We way overestimated how much we would need, and even after I shoved plates of food off on everyone I still filled my fridge up.


The group minus Evelyn. All these people are from my department at work so they all speak English pretty well. You can also see most of the food on the table.


The aftermath. Our kitchen table was way too small for this group so we ate around the coffee table. It actually worked out well because everyone was so full they just wanted to stretch out on the floor anyway.

Last minute Thanksgiving party

Our Thanksgiving plans this year were boring, in fact Nick will be in Nanjing on Thursday, so we were just planning on going to a post-Thanksgiving dinner a woman in our church group organized for Saturday. Today at work however I mentioned it was Thanksgiving and everyone decided they wanted to celebrate and have dinner at my house! Its not a huge group, just 10 people. We don't really have a lot of space though....

So we are having fake Thanksgiving. I told them not to expect turkey since I have no oven, and I couldn't cook a turkey even if I did since I'll be at work all day. I feel kind of weird making chicken for Thanksgiving, but its the best I can do on such short notice. I found a bakery that would make a turkey for me, but I don't want to spend $150 so that option is out. I am getting a pumpkin pie and stuffing delivered from that bakery though. Seriously I can't wait! Having people over provides me with a good excuse to order yummy food while Nick is gone, usually I am content with grilled cheese sandwiches every night.

I'll post pictures later of how our little Thanksgiving turns out. Luckily everyone that is coming is Chinese and has never celebrated Thanksgiving before so they have no expectations.

Matching

Today I saw a pretty interesting outfit. If I come home and wear something completely ridiculous and unmatching (I don't think thats a word) I blame it on over exposure to the crazy color combinations I see on the street and in the office everyday. Most days I'm just overwhelmed with mixtures of black and brown and navy, but today was particularly bad. Just try to picture this...

Emerald green shoes
Purple leggings
A checkered beige colored skirt
Bright red t-shirt
Black and white striped scarf

All on one person! Its fun to people watch here and wonder from what magazine someone got their clothing inspirations.

On a completely unrelated note, we bought HARRY POTTER tickets today. It was quite an ordeal finding a show in English so we wouldn't have to read subtitles, but some people from work helped me out and we bought 33 tickets for tomorrow night. Pretty much everyone in our church group here is going with us. I'm sure we'll be quite the spectacle for the Chinese people, most everyone at work didn't understand why I was so excited for this movie. I guess its not a big deal here, but I can't wait!

Floor Heaters

I have a love/hate relationship with the floor heaters in our apartment.They were turned on November 1st, so we had a couple of cold weeks before then but now we are toasty warm. The problem is it gets too warm! Most days we have to wear shorts and keep the windows open to be comfortable. Eventually we'll get them all adjusted, but I've heard it takes a few weeks. The good part is that if you leave your clothes on the floor at night, and then pull them on in the morning they are nice and warm when you climb out of bed. Also, since my feet are pretty much perpetually cold it is so nice to walk around on a heated floor.