Quickie in Dalian
H
ave you been to Dalian? (大连市) I will not overwhelm you with information on this post because, to be honest, I spent my weekend there with friends (that live there) so I didn’t really pay attention to names of places etc – I just let them steer my weekend.

By Xinghai square
What can I say? Dalian is a fun city, really is.
Why? Because of a few things – for one, it’s pretty quiet, which helps you to ‘kick back and relax’, no rush, no pressure to see everything.
Also, because it’s super clean (at least the city center and the beach area), there is an ocean, and the city holds the biggest square in Asia:) need more reasons?
See food! plenty of it, and very tasty – so you can have yourself a nice reasonably priced gourmet dinner.
And in general the prices are pretty decent, of everything I saw in Dalian (besides water by the ocean – 8RMB for 1 small bottle).
So if you are going to visit, what I can recommend (considering, again, that I didn’t really “tour”) is:
Go see the mentioned largest square, called ‘Xinghai Guangchang’, which is right by the ocean and a really cool small amusement park.

By Zhongshan square
Go see ‘Zhongshan Guang Chang’ – a big square in the middle of Dalian, surrounded by banks and similar institutions, pretty cool – worth seeing at night!
Go checkout ‘Liaoning normal university’ – the area is nice, the university is cool and there are really nice food stands all around with great food! And of course ‘street shops’ where you can buy what ever your heart desires!;)
There’s a cool Russian and Japanese streets – they are not too close one to the other but you can manage it with a 1 hour walk, if the weather is nice, do it.
To sum it up – Dalian is very nice – a good place to go for a weekend, and if you have the time, I would even go for 4 – 5 days.
That way you can see the city, rest, go to the ocean swim and have good sea food – perfect! Don’t forget your book at home!:)
Here are some photos I took while in Dalian, was a little lazy this time, but there are still a few nice ones: