For this trip, I joined tour group hence I did not do any research on the attractions which I visited. My research was only done while I was doing these posts. Since everything was taken care by the tour agency, I am also not able to recommend any affordable accommodations and restaurants I can only share some of the pictures which I captured. For this trip, we stayed in different hotel everyday. We spent a lot of time on the bus travelling from one province to another so some day we only visited one attraction. Hence you will see one or two of my posts to be very short. My After Feelings Everyone smokes anywhere and everywhere! I cannot even get some fresh clean air in the restaurant or in indoor malls. The air is bad. I had a bad headache for the first few days. It only feels better when I was at the rural area. A little introduction of Northern East ChinaIt consists of 3 Provinces. Liao Ning Province, capital is Shen Yang Ji Lin Province, capital is Chang Chun Hei Long Jiang Province, capital is Harbin I visited to all the capitals. But we did not explore each capital in detail. To me, it was a touch and go visit. My Art Piece, with filter Souvenir Cow biscuit I do not recommend the cow biscuit. It tasted like regular waffles and once it is put on the self for too long, it will lose its crunchiness. Chocolate All the chocolate are okay except the black wrapper chocolate bar. It contained 75% of cocoa. Instead of tasting bitter, it tasted sour Both baby face chocolate shown in the picture, tasted different. Blue berry The blue berry tasted all right. It has a taste which some people may not like. But most of my friends like it, But be aware which brand you made the purchase. Some company put colouring into the food. AccommodationAbove are picture of some of the hotels that I stayed. Each hotel has its own asset and short-coming. Hence I am not able to recommend the hotel to you. For example: The Gem hotsrping The room is spacious and pretty but it toilet made me feel creepy It breakfast is the bad (it is located at the rural area, hence the quality of the hotel may not be that good as compare to hotels in the city) FoodHere are some of the food pictures which I took.
After tasted the food from the different provinces, we like the food in Shen Yang the most. Its cooking style is similar to Malaysia. We travelled from Singapore to Shen Yang by Scoot. The flight was supposed to be at 2am but it was delayed till 5am (I reached the airport at 1.30am and have to wait till 4am+ before I can board the plane.) The flight took 6-6.5hours to reach ShengYang Airport. Breakfast was provide, in flight, at about 10am When we reached Sheng Yang, it was already noon. We had our lunch right after we left the airport. Shenyang Middle Street-Pedestrian Mall (沈阳中街步行街)After lunch, we were brought to this street to take a walk and purchased some warm clothing.
When we reached Shen Yang, the weather was chilly. As we came from a tropical country, all our clothing were made from thin material. It was difficult for us to understand the coldness if we were someone who do not travel much during winter. Hence for this trip, some of us came with little preparation. To me, I think this street is boring. Most of the shops sell clothes. Red Beach (盘绵红海滩)Red Beach, 盘绵红海滩 (pronunciation: pan mian hong hai tan)
it is actually not a beach where we usually find sand and sea. It is actually mud cover with 碱蓬草 (transated from google: suaeda grass) The place was not fully covered by the grass, but at some part of the area, I was able to capture a fully bloom picture. Sheng Yang >> Chang Chun = 4 Hours bus ride东北虎林园 (Siberia Tiger Park )We upgraded our transportation from a normal bus to a cage bus so we could get a closer view of the tigers. With 10RMB tourists were able to feed a piece of meat to the tiger. In this place, we could also find other animals. Bear, Reindeer, fox, peacock etc. BBQ Buffet for lunchLunch BBQ Buffet The buffet was not bad. There were quite a variety of choices. Museum of the Imperial Palace of the Manchu State (偽皇宫)Coincidentally, before I left for the trip, i did read some articles about the China's last emperor. Being able to visit his residence palace was like a study trip. This was the residence palace created by the Imperial Japanese Army for China's last emperor Puyi to live in as part of his role as Emperor of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. From our tour guide, this palace was built with a intention to be the palace for the Japanese emperor. The palace was nothing as compared to the Forbidden Palace in Beijing. This palace consisted the Emperor's private living quarter and his office. The furniture in the buildings were not the original. In the past, the palace was looted. This place was refurbished with the help of the last Emporer Puyi's youngest wife. China Emperors' SealsWe were lucky to be able to view this temporary exhibition held in the palace. I felt that the picture above resembled Japan.
Chang Chun was once ruled by Japaneses. Hence in this province, you will feel hint of Japanese and Russian vibe. Like this palace, it was designed by Japanese and built by Russian architecture. Another interesting fact, historical buildings built or designed by the Japanese are earthquake-proof. Chang Chung >> Chang Bai Shan = 5 hour bus rideChang Bai Mountain North East Culture ParkIn this place, we got to see a Manchu's house and experienced the wedding ceremony of Manchu, where one couple from our group was being selected to perform the ceremony. It was a hilarious and interesting view, full of laughter. Later on, we were brought to the ginseng forest.
Each of us was given a ginseng. At the beginning, we were told by the tour guide that we would get to experience digging our own ginseng. But in actual, the staff dug it for us on the piece of furrow, shown in picture two. Just a note, In my opinion, a local will not give any person ginseng for free. Hence, in China, if someone offered you a free ginseng, then you will have to get suspicious. The reason why they gave it to you, may be because the ginseng was of a lower grade, damaged or it has not reach its mature state. The next day, we had a super simple breakfast. Most of the dishes did not suit me hence I only had some Chinese bun and a cup of instant coffee (i brought it with me) The attractions I visited for this day were all located in the Chang Bai Mountain. Armed myself with layers of clothes. We were going to spend the day up in the mountain. Renting Warm ClothesBefore we went to to the attraction, we were brought to a shop to rent the items we need, like down jacket, knee protector, boots etc (all the clothing you wore during winter) Chang Bai Mountains ( 长白山)Chang Bai Shan has a elevation of 2744km+ It is a mountain range on the border between China and North Korea. Our tour guide told us that we were very lucky to be able to visit the attraction because the attraction was closed for the past 3 days due to snow. Fyi, the place is super busy in the morning. In the afternoon, the entrance is very quite. Heaven Lake (天池)Haven Lake was located at the peak of the mountain. To go to the peak, we had to change 3 transportations. We had to take a bus to one part of the mountain Then take another bus to another section of the mountain. Then take a mountain/small car to the peak. The place was very pretty. The snow was like shave ice, very fine and soft. I felt that we were really fortunate, because the peak was not as cold as expected. Chang Bai Waterfall (长白瀑布)Ju Long Hotpring (温泉群)see caption Small Heaven Lake (小天池)Because I was lazy, i did not view this attraction.
I stayed at the ground taking pictures. Ji Lin >> Harbin = 3.5 hours bus ride.Volga Manor(哈尔滨伏加庄园)What so special about this place was that, it rebuilt the St. Nicholas Cathedral that was destroyed during Cultural Revolution in Harbin. Walking on the trail made me felt like I was in a foreign country. In the Manor, you can find hotel, restaurants and other (which I do not know) But the place was quiet when we visited there, it seemed like all the shops were closed. Besides our group, I only see a few individual tourist and construction workers. This place is clean, quiet and beautiful. I like its peacefulness. One word for this place, it is someone's recreation and it turned into a tourist attraction. 莫斯科大剧院 (direct translate: Moscow Theatre)To me, the name of the place is already misleading.
When i searched the name online, it showed Bolshoi Theater, Moscow. Hence I assumed that the restaurant is trying to mimic the prestigious theater which, sad to say, it is nothing near to the actual theater All in all, I do not recommend to watch the performance held in this place. I attended the performance, thinking that it would be a cultural performance. Yes, there were a few traditional dance and Russia songs, but it also included pole dance and seductive dance. Hence if your tour guide or anyone recommended you to watch Russian Performance, please be aware of where the performance is taken place and the content of the performance. St. Sophia Church (圣索菲亚教堂广场)it was weird to see this distinctive architecture standing in the middle of the modern buildings. It was a pity that we did not go into the church. We only took some pictures outside of the cathedral. From my later research, this church is currently used as a museum Indoor Ice MuseumNext stop was to visit to a indoor ice museum. I am not very good at capturing the ice sculpture so these a few pictures which are shareable After visiting the Museum, we walked along a business district. Then we walked past the People's Flood Victory Monument (防洪胜利纪念塔 哈尔滨) and Stalin Park(斯大林公园) For this part, we just walked all the way, no shopping nor window shopping. So from the ice museum till the end of the park stroll, it took us about 1.5hour before we left to the restaurant for an early lunch. We had early lunch because we needed to reach the high speed rail station earlier than usual because during my visit, it was the period where Beijing was preparing to hold the top leaders meeting and our tour guide worried that the security might tighten up hence he adviced us to reach the train station earlier. Experiencing China's HRSWe returned to Sheng Yang by taking the high speed train which only took 2-2.5hour.
We reached the train station at about 1 pm and board the train at about 2.30pm. The train was spacious and looked clean. The next day, we took a morning flight back to Singapore |
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