The Road to Dalian City & Back...

Good morning/evening all, C here.

We are recovering from a round trip bus ride for the ages.
(Adoptive families who might be following along will know this story well.)

We had to make an overnight trip to Dalian City, which is where Dylan was born and where his orphanage is located. We left yesterday afternoon from the Shenyang bus terminal (could have been the Pittsburgh Terminal except for the Chinese signs). The trip would be a 5 hour journey. The bus was actually vey comfortable with comfortable divided leather seats (2 left, 1 right) and curtains for the windows.

The buys were tired and slept for a good part of the trip. We made 1 stop about halfway through at a rest stop that made those "old-style" rest stops on the PA turnpike look the Four Seasons! "Squat potties only", Veronica said with a knowing laugh; so the D-man was right at home - the rest of us had to tough it out.

We made it through the trip to Dalian and we got off at the bus "terminal" at Dalian - this was quite literally 3 Large Bus-sized parking spots on an very busy downtown street (across from the Ramada if you happen to know the layout of downtown Dalian).

We took a driver and minivan to the hotel as the trip was arduous and everyone was at the same time exhausted and a tad 'rammy". Veronica helped us to check in and we made our way to our "room".

OK, for all you Johnny Carson/Carnac fans, please indulge me in a little "Charnac".

The answer: The Shower.


"What was the single redeeming feature of our hotel closet? ...I mean hotel room."

The Dalian Wan Lee Hotel - I think it must have been #101 on the list of best htels, because I didn't see it in the last issue of Travel & Leisure! The sign that I saw showed it was rated NEGATIVE 2 Stars. OK, you get the picture.

Smokey - Check!
Small - Check!
A little darker than we'd like - Check!
Hard Beds - Check!
Icky Carpet - Check!
Shower - EXCELLENT - Very Hot Water and strong stream.
(If any of you golfers has ever played North Hill CC in suburban Philly - this shower rival the showers in the Men's Locker Room at NHCC - best I can remember!)

Back to the story...
As Kyle was lying in his bed he pointed up at to the ceiling in the corner of the room and offered: "Mom, what's that black thing up there. I don't like that!"
Lisa spun around and checked for signs of movement - luckily there was none. I kept an eye on it while she met Veronica at our door for our dinner - take-out Pizza Hut pizza. I scanned the "thing" for a few more moments and still no sign of life. We took a vote and decided that we would stay in this room and we all tried to ignore it! Thanks, Kyle!

We all inhaled our dinner. Dylan eating cheese off the top first then the crust, and Kyle using his Goddard School Friday Pizza technique of folding a slice lengthwise into a "pizza samich". Thanks again to Veronica, our most excellent guide.

We got up the next morning with the sun at 3:45!!! (Lisa and enjoyed a few moments of peace in the early morning light as the boys came out of their hibernations.) We made our way to breakfast and were met with a surly staff and a disappointing dearth of high chairs. We fought out way through breakfast - hard boiled eggs for the fellas, and strong coffee for the grown ups. The breakfast buffet was swarmed by a collection of Chinese, Russians, Koreans, Japanese, Germans, and the occasional Aussie - most of them would be guys you'd tend to pick out in lineups or pray that you didn't tick off in some way - rough crowd. After all we WERE in the heart of the dock district of one of the businest port cities in China. Looking at the breakfast crowd, that's exactly what you would have guessed if someone asked "Where are we?"

We took a short walking tour of the hotel environs to find that we were also in the center of the "Leisure" club district! In the States, they're Gentlemen's Clubs. In this area of Dalian (since there didn't appear to be too many folks that fit this description) they were just called clubs or Leisure Clubs or Business Clubs. I'm sure lots of "Business" gets transacted every night!

Gotta go now... here are some photos:

Later, C.

The room (I didn't include a shot of the Black Thing)...



The boys at a carved monkey (Stone):