iDenise.net

23 January, 2004

It's exciting to wake up in a new city. Especially if the city in question is Shenyang (瀋陽), capital of Liaoning province (遼寧), capital of the Manchu government that founded the Qing dynasty, and sadly snowless at this point in time. Cold, though. -15°C is decidedly cold.

I'd never yet had to deal with frozen wet tissues, at any rate.

Shenyang station

Shenyang street (see? no snow! and cold weather, to boot!)

Another street picture.

The buffet breakfast was surprisingly satisfactory - I love canned peaches! - and we went to see the Imperial Palace at Shenyang.

Shenyang Imperial Palace is one of two ancient palace compounds preserved in China. It was built from 1625 to 1636, during th reigns of Nurhachi and Huangtaiji, founders of the Qing dynasty. It is famous for its unique style of Manchurian palace all over the world. [edited from the introduction panel outside the palace]

All told, though, it's a pretty impressive palace. Nowhere near as big as the Forbidden City in Beijing, of course, but a worthy foundation of the Qing dynasty.

There was a lot of ice on the ground where you least expect it - and it's slippery as heck!		The throne in the main hall. Imagine an emperor sitting on it, attending to state afairs!
The throne hall/Chongzheng Hall/main hall.	Looks like a Pekingese dog, I think - now I undersand why Pekes are called lion dogs!	Despite what I said about it being small, it's still got a humongous courtyard! It's just that the Forbidden City has dozens of these - dang, that was one huge palace.
The Manchu army had 8 flags of different colours.	The Emperor and Empress lived here. I can't help thinking that it must be rather cold, with the stone floors and all...	A bathtub. The Emperor and Empress must have been rather small people. That, or very flexible.
Another view of the Emperor's room.	The Emperor and Empress slept here. I don't envy them.	A cradle for little princes and princesses. The whole thing is suspended from the ceiling!
	This is a toilet. (Ordinarily this would not be interesting, but I wanted to show the plastic strips on the door. Almost all the doors have them to keep the freezing wind out.)

After seeing the palace, we went for lunch. We seemed to be perpetually eating during the trip. Which wasn't a bad thing, really, since it was so cold. We had lots and lots of dumplings. Locals like to eat dumplings during the New Year because they look like gold pieces. We were supposed to have one each of each sort, but they all looked the same, and after a few turns of the table...no one remembered which they'd eaten already!

Dumpling hot pot. The number of dumplings that you get when the server shares it out is meant to show how lucky you will be in the new year!

Look at all the dumplings!
We'd finished some already - there were 12 steamers of them, in the beginning. Anyone would be confused!

Mum bought some hazelnuts from a street hawker. I've never seen unshelled hazelnuts before.

Afterwards we went to see the Zhang residence, where Zhang Zuolin (張作霖) and his son Zhang Xueliang (張學良) lived. I think they ruled northeast China for a while between them. I didn't catch much of what the tour guide said (she only spoke Putonghua - there are NO Cantonese-speaking tour guides in Northeast China, yet!). Anyway. They were important people. With lots of money and power.

It's a BIG place.

Zhang Zuolin had lots and lots of wives, and sufficient resources to house them all, it seems.

The entrance. Parts of it are very traditional, but there is a western mansion in there.	For some odd reason, snow gathers at the base of signposts and trees.	A scale model of the compound.
	His house.

We got back on the train after that and continued towards Changchun (長春), in Gilin Province (吉林). It was the frst time we were on the train in daylight, and it was very relaxing just to sit and listen to music as the countryside sped past. As we approached Changchun, it became visibly snowier, much to my delight!

I spent the three-hour trip listening to music, eating snacks, and - of course - taking pictures. It's much more comfortable to just sit there and let the photos come to you instead of having to hunt for them!

Shenyang station. I couldn't wait for the train to start moving!	Much of the landscape was like this, with varying amounts of snow. I used one of the tree pictures to create the background for these travel log pages!	Occasionally, we'd pass villages and towns. The train stopped at some of them to refuel (or do whatever it is that trains do when they stop).
Sometimes the landscape would change, and we'd get to see fields that go on forever. It's incredible to be able to look over so much land as the train goes on.	I got this amazing sense of...of...infinity. The world really seems huge when you pass so much land and see how little it is on a map.	The sun sets early. According to the image data, I took this photo at only 4:31 in the afternoon!
It became noticeably snowier as we went along. This pond was frozen and snowed over, with lumps of ice on the surface that glittered in the last rays of sunlight.	The endless fields went on, but they were almost completely covered by snow two-thirds of the way to Changchun. I wonder what the farmers do in winter. I guess they tend to their animals full-time then.	This stream was entirely frozen. Even after personally walking out onto a frozen river, I am still amazed that a body of running water can freeze so completely.
	In Hong Kong I rarely sit down to watch the sunset. But I got to see the most amazing sunset from start to finish from the comfort of an armchair, that day. Sometimes the double-paned windows would create reflections and I'd see two or three suns in a row.

We went to the Changchun Shangri-La right away that night, and had dinner there. We ate a lot of meals at hotels during the trip, which was very good as it ensured the food was at least edible, if not downright tasty.

A thing I noticed about the buildings in the northeast is that they ALL have either revolving doors, or two sets of doors one after the other. I was annoyed at having to go through all the doors at first, before I realized it was necessary to keep the wind out and prevent the lobby from becoming a giant freezer.

I never knew that revolving doors had any use other than decoration, but now I know - and it is a CLEVER idea, too!

Some photos of my hotel room:

My very very big bed - all mine! :D

View of the street from the window.

I got to see fireworks from my window. They aren't illegal in China, so everywhere people were letting them off to celebrate the New Year. I saw fireworks every single day of the trip!

I pilfered a postcard and a bookmark from that room. :D

I couldn't stand the heating - it made the room so stuffy - so I opened the window a crack to sleep. I shall forever be able to brag that I left the window open on a -20° night, haha!

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All photos, graphics, layout and text on the following pages are © Denise Chan 2004, unless otherwise stated; please ask before using any of them. My email is denise at idenise dot net.
(Feel free to use any photo you like as wallpaper on your desktop, or your own personal use - just don't take them and use them on a website or other publication without appropriate credit.)
The dragon in the title graphic is a scanned ink drawing of my own, and the font used is 'Chinese Takeaway' by Pizzadude.
The decorative pattern used for the top corners was copied from a window frame.
The tree background is from a photograph I took on the train from Harbin to Beijing.