June 22, 2007
Dalian (CHINA)
Heading for the North Korean Border
Ever since I found out I would be in Dalian for the summer I have been waiting for the opportunity to visit the North Korean border. Obviously, this is not the kind of trip that is likely to be sanctioned, so I have quietly bided my time knowing the opportunity would eventually come. Well, such an opportunity finally presented itself.
The other REU students were leaving for a weekend trip to the city of Qingdao, but in my eyes, two days in Qingdao are not worth the 20 hours of travel time or the USD$100 price tag. So, I am "alone in Dalian for the weekend", and as long as I arrive back before the group no one will be any the wiser.
The idea of visiting Dandong (where there is a border crossing with North Korea) didn't come to me until after lunch, so I crammed a lot of coordinating into a very small time frame. In the end, I caught the last bus of the day to the capital of Liao Ning Province, Shenyang, which is roughly four hours north of Dalian. My plan called for a night in Shenyang, and an early bus the following morning to the city of Dandong.
While on the bus to Shenyang, I struck up a conversation
with an attractive Chinese woman, Nancy, sitting next to
me. Although she didn't speak much English, my Chinese
is fortunately passable in such situations and we got
along fine. She told me she was visiting her parents in
a city near Shenyang, called Tie Ling, and
invited me to stay with them. I was obviously quite
apprehensive about accepting such an offer (we had only
just met, after all), so I sent a text message to
several of my Chinese friends asking for their input.
They were all as unsure about the situation as I was, so
I decided to wait it out and see what happens.
We
arrived in Shenyang at 11pm, and Nancy called a
colleague (both are accountants) who spoke fluent
English.
Her friend was kind enough to take a taxi to
meet us, and they both accompanied me to a hotel to make
sure I settled in well. All my worries were quickly put
aside as I realized what genuinely kind people I was
with.
I explained that as much as I wanted to, I could not visit Tie Ling this weekend because of Dandong, but we agreed to meet the following weekend.
Such are the unpredictable twists and turns in life!