The Halfway Point: A Photo Essay

The fact that we're halfway done is nuts. But. More importantly, this past weekend we went on a three-day trip to see the border between North Korea and China. This will mostly be a photo-essay since I took so many pictures, so I hope you enjoy!

We started off with an overnight train ride to 丹东, with hard sleeper seats this time instead of soft sleepers - meaning no little cabins of four people, just a big open car divided into sections of 6 beds each. After playing cards for a bit with Jeff, his roommate, and 郭亭廷, we chatted for a long time before heading to bed around midnight. In the morning, we were in 丹东.

Hard sleeper cabin

From there, we headed to the local supermarket to buy lunch before making the two hour ride to a half-bridge to North Korea. We made a pit stop on the way and got our first look at 朝鲜.

At the supermarket...

Pitstop at 河口

A first view of 朝鲜

The half-bridge was also a memorial to Chinese involvement in the Korean War. While we were there, actually, a group of veterans from the Korean War and others came to visit as well. They were surprised by our group of Americans, but not hostile.

There were busts of soldiers lining one walk

Half-bridge to North Korea

Obligatory picture with me in it, and also 刘国勇 and 黄慧英

Video: The banks of North Korea

Veterans

From there, we headed to our hotel for the night, 满家寨满清园景观区, featuring traditional 满族 decorations and clothes. There, we watched an ethnic performance and then had a bonfire to roast lamb.

Our hotel's interior

The exterior

大鸦, or opium

On this picture...迟小波 asked 巴西's roommate, Tengfei, whether it was a "fun activity". This was out of a lack of a vocabulary - "fun activity" was used to mean drug, because after all, what Chinese textbook would include a chapter on drugs? - but Tengfei was a bit ruffled. "No, no, no," he said emphatically (he uses more English than many of the other roommates, but the rest of this conversation was in Chinese). "Like marijuana," he said, "very bad." "So...a fun activity, right?" 小波 responded. "No no no no no," Tengfei answered. "From England, right?" I asked, and added something about war. Tengfei seemed relieved and 小波 understood why Tengfei had been getting upset. The conversation was neither very tense nor very long, but between a person less relaxed than Tengfei or less genuinely kind than 小波 I can see how this might have been a difficult interaction. My belief in the importance of history/cultural understanding was reaffirmed.

The show we watched that night was interesting enough - not spectacular, but pretty and short.

Traditional 满族 dress

Lion dance!

Was beautiful

I liked the flags

Dragons

Video: Dragon Dance

After the show, we had our bonfire under some trees in the courtyard to avoid the rain. We taught our Chinese friends how to make s'mores! They were amazed by the concept of roasting marshmallows.

Lamb + marshmallows

There was karaoke

Video: 对面的女孩看过来

Also spontaneous fireworks

And an impromptu dance party in the rain! But I was too busy dancing to take pictures. The next morning we got to boat, see a thousand-year-old pine tree, and look at a waterfall, all before lunch!

Our boat

On a boat

Me on a boat

Riverside

Video: Moving Riverside

Thousand-year-old pine tree

Making wishes

Excellent Engrish

Waterfall!

Jeff and I, courtesy of his roommate Weiqiang

Chinese roommates having fun

These guys...

Afterwards, we returned to 满家寨 for lunch before heading to (a potentially fake) segment of the Great Wall/more looking at North Korea

长城

North Korea across the 鸭绿江

Ali and I at the highest outpost

The very, very steep way down

North Korea as seen from under an overhang in the mountain

Video: There was eerie music. I'm not sure if it comes through in the video, but it was there.

At the bottom, you could dress up in hanbok and take a picture in front of North Korea

It was only that far away...

That night, we stayed at a hotel in 丹东 proper, right near the banks of the 鸭绿江. We had an amazing experience with dinner. We went to a Korean restaurant right around the corner from our hotel, and got a private room because our group was 17 or 18 people strong. The room was beautiful. You had to take your shoes off in the entryway before stepping onto the raised platform that was the rest of the floor. The table was a round slab of wood over a sunken round cutout, and we sat on the floor with our legs dangling down into that hole. The windows of the room faced the river, and for some reason there was a great fireworks show on the banks of the river that night, as big as the ones on the 4th of July. We watched it for a while before indulging in delicious Korean food on CET's dime.

Afterwards, I ended up with a group of 8 male students intent on hunting down cold beer. There was none to be found, so they settled on warm ones from the supermarket before we all headed back to the banks of the river and met up with some other students. We hung out and chatted for a few hours, those who wanted drinking beer, all just enjoying ourselves. We Americans forgot that in the US one can't just drink in public until one of the Chinese roommates asked about it... I like the relaxed drinking laws in China. It makes for a much more laid-back dining.

The next morning, we took a boat ride on the river to look at North Korea again.

We're all 99% sure that ferris wheel is just for show

Note the North Korean flag being flown on these masts

Later, we headed to the city of 沈阳 in order to catch our train. With our 4 hours of free time before the ride back to 哈尔滨, we went to a big shopping street to look around. We ate at a famous dumpling restaurant and looked at the (already closed for the evening) 沈阳故宫.

So many peopleeee

老边饺子 were delicious, even if the service was terrible...

沈阳故宫

We found an arcade in a shopping mall to while away the rest of our time. Too much fun.

亭廷 plays "Tread Beetle"

慧英 plays air hockey

Tianbo races an armadillo?

Racing!

And the most fun game of all, throw balls at things like cats on bicycles

The ride home was fine, although we arrived at 6 am. I feel very, very bad for the people who had 8 am class on Monday. I didn't and I was still exhausted enough to be needing naps Tuesday afternoon.

And that ends this monster of a post! Sorry for multimedia-overload. One month left. Hoo boy.