Greetings all,
I know it has been awhile since I last wrote and I'm trying to get caught back up! May and June have been such a hectic pace from a traveling standpoint, and I'm just now getting un-let-lagged to be able to get caught up, so bare with me!
This weekend is a 3 day weekend here in China to celebrate Dragon boat festival. This time last year we were in Hong Kong seeing the Dragon boat races, so this year, we decided to stay a little closer to home, but still get away, so we went south of here to the North Korean border town of Dandong. (Yes, in Shenyang, we really are north of North Korea!)
Dandong has 2 claims to fame (at least that we know of...there may be more!) 1) is the bridge that goes across the Yellow River from Dandong to North Korea, that was blown up by the Americans in the Korean war. The bridge that was on the China side is still standing and is now a tourist attraction. 2) The eastern-most portion of the Great Wall of China. Dandong is about 2.5 hours drive, so we went down on Friday, spent the night, and came back on Saturday...a good way to spend a 3 day weekend, giving us 1 day to just relax!
When we arrived in Dandong, the city is situated along the Yellow River, population about 600,000...a small city by Chinese standards), and so much of the life of the city is along the river, which empties out into the Sea, so the tide changes the level of the river. They have a nice riverside promenade area which, I used to do my morning exercises. Down by the blown up bridge is where all the tourists stuff is and of course I had to have the picture taken with a Korean dress on!
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| Sarah in the Korean dress, in Dandong, China, on the border with North Korea. The arched bridge in the background is the one that was blown up in the Korean War...it stops a little over 1/2 across the YaLu river. |
We walked out onto the bridge, listening to music, which I'm guessing was patriotic Chinese music (I'm sure was not pro-American) sung by the Chinese choirs! Rod made up some lyrics which made it pro-American for us and sang right along, which of course made us even more of a tourist attraction than the bridge itself!
Here are some pictures of the bridge...it was a draw bridge, but instead of vertical, it was horizontal. Of course, none of that is working now because it got blown to smitherines!
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| Close up of the bridge destruction |
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| More of the bridge...alot of force to blow that thing up! |
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| Sarah, in front of the blowup bridge |
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| Rod in front of the blown up bridge |
After the bridge, we went to the War memorial there with intentions to go to the museum, but by the time we got there it was closed, so we just walked around the memorial and gardens.
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| Rod & Sarah with a friend of our drivers at the Korean War memorial in Dandong, China |
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| The base of the Korean War Memorial |
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| The expression on the faces of the sculptures here is just fascinating..so real life!! |
Down from the war memorial was a reflection garden with lots of lily pads in the pool and a bird avery.
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| Rod whispering sweet somethings in my ear at the reflection garden at the Korean War Memorial in Dandong, China |
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| The reflection garden at the War memorial |
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| Rod in front of the reflection garden at the war memorial |
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| The Korean War memorial at Dandong, China |
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| Sarah at the Reflection pool at the Dandong Korean War memorial |
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| There was a lady who had this peacock trained..it wouldn't turn around so that you could take a picture unless she told it to...and she wouldn't tell it to until you gave her 5 RMB! So I paid, and then she put me behind him to take this picture! |
After the war memorial, we walked around and over to a little island community called "Moon Island"...by this time it was dark and of course, in classic Chinese fashion, the neon and LED's came on to light up the place! This is where we really saw the 1st stark difference between China and North Korea...on the China said, business is booming...on the North Korean side, it's pretty dead...dark and not much activity..only a few car headlights at night and not many lights in the apartment buildings in North Korea.
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| Rod on the bridge to Moon Island, Dandong, China |
The next day, we went to see the Eastern most portion of the Great Wall of China. Contrary to popular belief, The Great wall is not continuous, nor was it all built at the same time...part of it was 1st built around the 1st dynasty and has been added to and reinforced and renovated several times throughout history.
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| Sarah at one of the platforms on the Great Wall |
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| Rod at one of the platforms at Dandong Great Wall |
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| Looking from the top of the great wall out at the creek separating China (left) from North Korea (right). You can't see it in this photo, but farm field on the right is being plowed by a single cow and 1 person leading the cow and 1 person behind the plow...tough life....communism at it's best. |
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| Great Wall at Dandong, China |
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| it never ceases to amaze me that some chinese women choose to climb the great wall in high heels...there are parts of this wall that are really steep..brings a whole new level of mastery to walking in high heels that I surely don't have! |
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| Rod and Sarah walking on the Great wall in Dandong..in tennis shoes and sweating! |
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| After the Great wall, we went to the bottom where there, in a pavillion area, some woman had set up shop cleaning ears...yep, and you can't see it clearly, but she's using something on her key ring to clean these ears...makes me turn my head just to think of it! |
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So, that's about it for today...(it's hard to post a photo after the ear cleaning one and keep any train of thought going!) Hope everyone has a great day and thanks again for your continued prayers as we continue on our journey here in China!
Rod & Sarah
Sarah
