Cornucopias and Trolleys

So, our second Thanksgiving in China has come and gone.  Instead of repeating the ridiculously crowded and over-stressed experience we had last year, we opted for a small Thanksgiving meal with the Swansons and a quick weekend trip down to Dalian, Liaoning Province.  Dalian is THE beach town of the North.

Okay, so a few pictures of Thanksgiving.  Most of this blog will just be pictures, so if you’re not interested, move along.

These are shots of the cornucopia.  Yes indeed, AllRecipes supplied me with a spiffy idea, which I (mostly) executed perfectly.  Justin helped.  Connor did not.

So, you take the foil and shape it into the proper cornucopia shape, then stuff it with more foil until it’s firm.

Then, you wrap breadsticks around it.

And brush it with egg wash.  The most difficult part was getting the tail to stay up properly.

I was a little excited.

Okay, VERY excited.  Baked it for about an hour, then wrapped it up for the Grand Revealing the next day.

But first, we had a Thanksgiving breakfast with said Swansons.

Cranberry pancakes, sausage, and egg.

Connor was excited about the pancakes.

Rachel was mostly on the phone.    Just kidding.  Actually, we were all answering the many “Happy Thanksgiving, Teacher” messages.  The most common well-wishing occasion message is: I open my wallet, find no money.  I open my pocket, find no coin.  I open my life, find you, then I know how rich I am!  It’s cute.

Anywho.  A while after breakfast, we get snacky whilst playing games, thus….

The Cheese ball.  That’s right, ladies and gents, I made a cheese ball.  First time I bought cream cheese in China, as it’s not cheap, but definitely well worth it.

Note that Rachel spent a good amount of time stuffing her face before anyone else got in on the action.

And check out the cornucopia!  Stuffed with fresh veggies for the dipping.  Worked beautifully.

Justin forgot to take a picture of the feast before consumption, but here’s the sad wreckage afterwards.

No turkey, chicken instead, but we had green beans, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, rolls, and mac and cheese, with pecan pie for dessert.  Of course, I couldn’t eat most of that, but it still disappeared pretty fast. 

A few hours later, we were on our way to Dalian.  An enterprising woman struck up a conversation (in Chinese, look at me go!!!  I understood about half of what she said!  Vast improvement.) on the train, and I finally hinted enough about Connor’s bedtime to send her on her way.  Here’s a picture of hard sleepers on the train.

Warning: I had just woken up the following morning.  Thou shalt not mock a half-asleep picture of Shannon.  The 11th Commandment.

Yes, Connor and I shared that bed.  Or, more accurately, he took up 3/4 of it.  Considering I have a hundred pounds on him, that’s saying something.

We stayed at a nice hotel in town.  Nice thing is that it was the off-season, so our nice hotel in Dalian was cheaper than two dorm beds at the hostels in Beijing and Xi’an. 

To get to the hotel, the website told us to take bus 201 from the train station.  Not just any bus.  A TROLLEY. 

Had to do a black-and-white here.  It felt very Judy Garland, Meet Me in St. Louis.  Yes, of course I broke out in a chorus of the Trolley Song.  What’s the point of being a foreigner in China if you don’t meet their expectations of zaniness sometimes?  Clang, clang, clang went the trolley…

Normal crowded state, but it felt fancier.  Well, actually, this was roomy for us with the Harbin bus experience.

Anyway, after checking in, we wandered around town.  Dalian is WONDERFUL.  Small but modern, hilly tree-lined streets (never seen that in China before), several parks, plenty of great seafood and some good Western food too (we’re told; we stuck to seafood), 15 minutes from several great beaches.  This is definitely a city we’d love to live in.  It has a great climate and feels really relaxed.

Anyway, for lunch, we had sushi. 

I was a wee bit giddy about that.

Walked around some more.

 

      Guys on the street gambling.  Priceless.

Had dinner at the place with the cabbage on the sign.  No idea what it’s actually called.    This is some sort of fried fish with a great sauce.  Not really sweet and sour, just really tasty. 

  Basically Chinese coleslaw.  Don’t like American, but I do like Chinese.  Go figure.

  And Connor had chicken nuggets.  At least he’s growing up a little bit American.

Okay, this is one of the famous foods in Dalian.  It’s basically a  fish/potato pancake.  Sounds weird, right?  Wrong.  It’s fabulous.  So good we ordered more.  Salty, fishy, somehow reminded me of hush puppies, but not hush puppy-ish at all.

Walked around some more.       This is a landmark of Dalian.  Crystal ball that is lit up at night, supported by five hands that represent five continents and their unity.  Don’t know what happened to the other two continents, but there you have it.  Smack dab in the center of Friendship Square.

Okay, hung out at the hotel that evening with Connor, watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Connor’s favorite is the funny dog).  Headed to the beach the next morning.  We chose the only beach that doesn’t have an admission price, since we figured we would only be there for a little while with Connor.  I think maybe we should have coughed up the money for one of the more beautiful beaches.

Still there were things to see at Tiger Beach, including a tiger statue…

…a weird fish mural…

and some pretty cool cliff/beach scenery.

    

    

…but then Connor got tired and didn’t like the wind coming off of the ocean, so we headed back into town.  We walked the shopping streets and found a couple of cool coffeehouses and a place for Connor to play.

He had fun.

So, we had our last meal in Dalian.  A smorgasbord of shrimp.

Shrimp breaded and fried with salty egg, alongside pumpkin, shrimp wontons in clear broth, and cool little crispy veggie rolls.  Delish.  And the tea there was really good, too; the manager even gave us some tea leaves when we told her how good it was.

Added bonus, they had goldfish swimming around next to our table. 

Connor was excited.  Almost fell in a couple of times.

Connor then made a friend at a coffee shop we hung out at until our train left.    

So we caught the train back and watched some Mickey’s Christmas Carol until Connor’s bedtime.  He loves it.

We knew we were home when we stepped off of the train and our boogers froze in our nose.  It was in the 40s in Dalian.  It was 1 degree above zero in Harbin.

So, that’s our trip.    Much better than our trip to Xi’an – this time we weren’t pickpocketed and we didn’t miss a train, sit up all night, or lose our train tickets!