The slow train to Jinzhou [锦州] complained in a crowded station Benxi [本溪]. Safe in the knowledge of our hard seat tickets that are left behind beyond the 2-nudged ahead at full speed-attack is board a train in China and finally addressed, but with civility in no hurry.
It turns out that the train should have taken the matter and decided to continue with the theme of unhurriedness, the four hours were required to stretch ... along with the endless green sent Liaoning province ... in a much longer journey.
Trains in China are a phenomenon. I love traveling by train. Each car is a microcosm of life and our slow train really gave me the opportunity to absorb it. Another day in the 30s found the rows of small green electric fans along the ceiling of overtime and no real effect. Relief of fire coming from the breeze that flows through the open windows, rustling plastic bags and throw empty bottles to the ground with his strength. From time to time another train passes with a terrifying bang shakes the vessel pressure and makes the heart race a little faster.
I chew steamed bread and bananas. My classmates are eating sunflower seeds with that familiar rhythmic snap of the deposits.
The train has stopped for an unusually long time at a small station. It is only a line and we have to wait for another train that is currently in it before we can take our turn. Only small farms which are, low, squat buildings made of mud bricks white. In every inch of land free of sweet corn plants are muscling their green leaves lasts almost shoulder height, not yet hung with yellow thick load. An old man is the grazing of a multitude of ducks falling.
[Image: Liaoning area of the train ...]
Bijiashan: Present and Future
Jinzhou city seems a good enough, what little we saw of him. The intensity of light was striking, perhaps because it is near the ocean, or perhaps because there was not a single cloud. The late afternoon was still wet. I put on my hat.
The last shuttle Bijiashan [笔架山] leaves at 17:30. The trip takes over an hour at all times I hope to see the ocean, but we're not as close as I thought. It's just as the crest of the hill-finals of the wide road, empty the sea sparkles to the eye and is just as fast obscured by huge scaffolding that marks the end of the road. We are the only two left on the bus.
There is a row of cheap buildings, unfortunate that many top restaurants and hotels. A dirt road leads to the right (parallel to the ocean) for nothing and lined with a set of buildings and a small grocery store with umbrella hook.
We can only see the island from an image on posters hanging from the scaffolding: the real is hidden behind a huge photograph of himself. The photo shows a small green island at the end of a seductively pale sandy road lying between the waves broke away from a deep blue ocean.
The premises will soon be grouped around us, my hat costume my surprise only for so long, and besides that, we're the only people here. We are told that we can walk through or take a boat trip to the island in the morning. low tide, when the road emerges from the sea, is about 10am.
We remain the leader of one of the hotels that offers a bathroom for 50RMB. You can see it: small, dirty and with a squat toilet. We decided we do not need a bathroom and ask to see a cheaper room. We finished with a double bed, a TV that does not work, no lockout and a small window that opens onto the corridor. We can not complain for only 10RMB each.
We took a walk. 20 minutes down the road is a small complex with swimming pool housed in the sea for a long semicircular wall. The interior consists of a solid wall of billboards that show a stunning hotel unrecognizable. The sun is setting on this Bijiashan vision of the future, but we can not see it, but behind the construction stage to rival any I've seen in China. The cranes make their height, the intricate shadows against the soft orange glow.
[Image: Photograph of Bijiashan on the ticket and fences ...]
Bijiashan evening
The large saltwater pool spreads like a lake, surrounded by ugly brown sand, but a defiant grace about it. The surface is flattened to milk blue and occasionally of a dark night, local swimming disturbed. We walked a while in the sand stirred up through sun loungers empty, its shiny white plastic. Somewhere in the distance a start beating dance tune. The light is fading fast and we decided to walk to the boardwalk, I'm anxious to see the waves, to see the real ocean.
The night is ridiculously humid and the nearly full moon begins to rise, plating the dark. The ocean, almost the same color as the sky is a murky blue of life with the rhythm of the waves. It is this silence soft sound of water over stone. It is impossible to resist the cooling sea and we decided to take a walk to a small outcrop of black rock that remain still face the crest of the waves.
[Photo: Sun loungers and pool at sunset ...]
Bijiashan in the Dark
The sea is warm and the water rises to his knees in the deepest point before falling back again and arrived at a small outcrop. We sit and watch the moonrise is white path across the ocean growing. A person on the ground thus launching fireworks and air time is all the sound and the stars.
It is totally dark. We passed a few locals have white bags and torches. We see their little lights floating like stars that have fallen into the sea. They will go on lifting stone crabs and game all night.
We walked back to our hotel feeling of peace, not just the hint of a breeze stirring the hot air. A few locals are out for a walk but otherwise, except for the moon, the world could be abandoned.
22: 30 Anticipating an early start we leave our hotel to sleep: is everything. Unfortunately it seems that everybody could be here, arguing neighbors, TV blaring and someone endless knocking on doors. I do not remember sleeping, very concerned only the noise of others to stay awake.
[Photo: small rocky island in the dark ...]
Bijiashan in hours
Arriving somewhere in the night always gives something a little more to the experience of travel. Waking up in the morning there is that sense of discovery of a new place and so we hope that we get up at 6:30 to get our first glimpse of Bijiashan Island.
Few people were close and we are a small group through a hole in the scaffolding for a locker. We made our way to a new concrete yard clean, obviously, part of the reason for the scaffolding, the other side is a large stone statue of a woman with outstretched arms to the island.
The road extends to the island. It is a path of stones purple, gray, emerging from the muddy waters and stretches its sharp stones in the distance. The island looks tiny and not 100 meters to the right is a quay crane-studded ranging from land to sea with all the grace of a highway. The locals complain of the spring tide prevents back properly, leaving the central part of the road permanently under water.
Negotiation de la Calzada
We walked a couple hundred meters before the sea stopped us. Other sections of the road were visible from the front, but it would at some point before the sea receded enough for us to reach them. A line of boats were moored at the side between the road and the dock. At sea, I saw two fishermen in depth to the chest, dragging for fish. Occasionally their triangular networks that rise from the sea like a great sail to the sky opening, the content is funneled down into a bag and expert network turned back under the waves.
Street vendors gathered their goods in boxes, packages and waited. We hope. Some small groups of visitors expected. Every 10 minutes or so, we all advanced a few yards along the road. After an hour or so we were perhaps a third of the way to the island with what we realized was waiting too long for the road to be passable. Having come so far, I could not imagine not set foot on the island, so he took a boat and 5 minutes later were deposited on land.
[Photo: First view of Bijiashan Island in the light of day ...]
Bijiashan Island: on / off
Apparently, as in the Qing Dynasty monk decided to make the island their home when he was convinced he had a powerful aura of feng shui. On the other hand, was determined to build some temples on the island and were built entirely of stone (joints and hinges too!). The stone slid to the island one winter when the bay waters were frozen.
A pair of temples remain on the island, stone bricks strong testimony of the devotion of the monk. Within the first find an old woman sleeping on the floor, managed a toothy grin and waved us to the statues of Buddha. The other temple is circular and has two levels, with measures of height as the wind outside. Trapped inside every floor is a stone carving that looks without seeing a hole in the stone.
The island, fortunately for us, was only slightly greater than it seemed. A road winds through it alone and is a pleasant walk steep, but through peaceful moments of foliage and stalls ubiquitous shell jewelry, incense and dried seahorses.
My travel Blog|Shanghai tours| Shanghai Expo Back on the road less than an hour later were passed by a group full ride with the leader of the speaker wearing baseball caps and bright red color. The road itself was not visible below tourists, hundreds of them, rampaging through the shallower waters now in single file, while a nonstop convoy of motorboats send many more on the ground.
The beach of shells had landed in a mixture of prosperous merchants and landing them. We took a ride on a boat back is against the traffic, the driver said the tide was so low as would go, but parts of the road stood knee-deep in the ocean.
He dropped on land, we fought our way against the onslaught of tourism. Bijiashan The desert had found the night before was gone, unrecognizable under a mass of people, taxis and buses with air conditioning and for a moment I realized that the phrase "cold light of morning. But it's good to have known, last night when night fell, the other side of Bijiashan.
