Back on the Bund

Wednesday, July 14 The remainder of our day in Dalian was pleasant, although our purported history scholar turned out to know less about the history of Dalian than we did. He told us the same information again and again. He was a sweet man, and our young translator enjoyed the challenge. We walked a bit around the city and got a sense of where the old Russian section was. Then we all had tea, and I tried to focus questions on our guide's own life -- which he would know more about than he did about the Russo-Japanese War. His father was a policeman when he was a boy and the Soviets were in control. That may explain why he learned Russian -- he said he had many Russian playmates (perhaps only Russian playmates if his father was viewed as a collaborator, but we did not ask about that.) The highlight of our encounter was the four of us taking a taxi back to his house -- a house with a lovely garden, where we met his sister, her husband, a feisty little woman from Los Angeles named Alma who was visiting them. She was a real character and freely made comments about the poor quality of the door hinges, the toilet paper, etc. We had a few good laughs and then had to hurry to the airport. The airport matched everything else about Dalian -- immaculate, easy to deal with. The flight was pleasant and we got here in time to take a walk on the bund -- this time with no rain, a breezy summer night. The Roof Garden to the Peace Hotel was open also, so we sat up there and had a beer, watching the various buildings turn off their neon signs as the Big Ben type clock stroked midnight. That's the good news. On the flight we caught up on our reading of the China Daily -- not available in Harbin or Dalian -- and discovered that tourists have been evacuated on the Yangtze because of flooding. Since it was too late to call anyone here, I called the Regal Tours office in New York, who said our trip will go, but start above the locks. They assured us we won't miss anything, and the trip will be the same length, etc. I am skeptical, but there is nothing to do until we get to Wuhan tonight. That is the start-endpoint of the trip, so I imagine our hotel will be full of others who have either just taken or are about to embark (or not embark) on the same trip. Off to breakfast in the footsteps of Noel Coward.