My 20 Minute Walk to Work in Dalian China in a 30 Photo Journal

Every Tuesday and Wednesday this is my walk, uphill, both ways, at 7:30am, no joke.

100% @solarguy content and photos

I think I managed to trim down my photos to the best 30, more than 30 photos and it's probably too many, I think I am pushing it now.

This is what I see on my way to work. I do prefer this trek more in the winter or at least cooler days. In the summer I melt like ice cream even before the sun is over the tops of the buildings. Brutal heat, I can't wait to spend this summer back home in Canada pretending to be a tourist.

Here it is. The sights I see for the first 30 minutes of my morning once I get outside. With commentary

The view down my quiet street. Shadows stretching before me. I must be walking west.

I turn right at the first street to take a short cut. This way I hike over a huge hill which is the same height as a 10 story building.

An old man doing some exercises after picking up some things from the shop, you can see his bag hanging from the bar. I will have another post about this soon.

Usually a bustling market in the morning, it's now 7:30am and by now it has dwindled down to a few stragglers. 6:30am is the busiest time, mostly retired folks who will nap while we work.

I love this little shop. The lady and her husband probably have kids my age (36) and they sell cat food and kitty litter. They have a little dog named Coco. Very friendly couple I go out of my way to give business to.

The Steps
This is just demoralizing to look up at. I mean, at 7:30 and having to make this your wake up hike is brutal. I smoke, I drink (not daily) and then seeing this is like "i need a new job" or "TAXI", nah, I love my job and the hill is probably good for me.

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Notice that big golf ball looking structure on the hill over there. It's actually a weather tower, that's what it's called. The school I am heading to is literally right below it. It's in another photo coming up right by the school.

The Pitiful Dog I see this pooch every time in the same spot. Must be nice in the sun.

This is about midway up the steps. A couple of men chatting about news I assume or talking about what they are going to have for lunch or bragging about their breakfast.

With so many hills being leveled and cut to fit as many buildings as possible bridges are needed to get home.

After the Steps Yes I made it up the steps, huffing and puffing and it's still not the top. I need to go up the road here and then around the bend and up a little more.

I can't believe I spotted this cat through the branches taking a sun bath.

An old man with his prized birds. He's not out here often, I lucked out he was there today. Now, I am all for having pets but birds are the one pet I wouldn't keep. The whole idea of keeping them in cage is awful. Some will argue "but your cats are kept in your home, like a cage. Why does it matter?"

Well I would tell them at least my cats can run, jump, hide, hunt dust bunnies and in the least go in to other rooms. While the birds are not even able to flap their wings to the fullest or fly like they were meant too. Birds just want to escape captivity and my cats love the easy life. When I lived in the countryside of Canada (Muskoka) our cats would come in and out of the house several times a day, they always returned; pet birds will not.

So close to the top, a small dip down then over the hump and on to other interesting sights. I used to live up here about 4 years ago actually. It's a great place to find "Green Gold" growing in the wild.

"OH, glorious day, I get to go down the hill."

I won't be going down these steps. I need to walk along the hill for a while then I can drop down the steeper part coming up.

I walk along here for a while. The other side of the brick wall is a steep drop and some ninja style urban gardens the locals keep.

Typical entrance of the residences along this road.

Well their ain't much wood to burn. Well, there is but it's not clean, it's pallets, furniture, and scraps scrounged up, all covered and treated with a variety of chemicals. I wouldn't burn unless it was my only option for survival. It seems this one hasn't been used in a while, that's good news.

Every time I walk by this dog comes right up to me from behind, sniffs my ankles and smells my cats and barks at me like I'm trying steal his bone. If I wasn't in such a rush for my lessons I would try to win him over.

Random Public Use Exercise Equipment these things are all over the city, usually near bus stops. Quite popular with the over 60 crowd. I got a post loading up all about them. I just need to have a chat first and get the low down.

HOLY CRAP! steps going down. Breathing slows and my body and mind begin to relax physically. Uneven steps are still not so bad after coming over the top of North Mountain, the name of the hill. It was actually battled over during the wars and hundreds of solders, Chinese, Japanese and Russian have killed and died here for control.

It's actually getting into a kind of wealthy part of the city. Mostly old Japanese houses which would require a huge bank account to live in one.

First time to see a sad, dirty, lost, pink teddy bear. I wondered if it fell off the garbage truck or if some child is losing sleep over it.

The view of downtown from the other side.

Not all these old Japanese houses are for the rich. You can squeeze several large families into one and never do upkeep. ^^

Local delivery guys organizing and getting ready to take all those TaoBao (Chinese Amazon) orders out to the fine people who are keen to shop online. China beats the West daily with online shopping, yes this one country beats out all the west in this department.

Home Stretch err, work stretch. Once I see this I know I'm just minutes away.

That's the place. WangHai Xiao Xue which means Wanghai Primary School one of Dalian's more prominent schools downtown. If you look close enough you can see that Golf Ball looking weather tower is now on the opposite side as the first time i mentioned it and a whole lot closer.

I get to do it all again on the way home but I usually wuss out and take a taxi. Mostly because I don't go directly home. I will walk to another 15 minutes away from home to do some grocery shopping at Carrefour then take a taxi home.

Just another day of my Canadian soul in the land of China.
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