Not China's 3rd Biggest City

  Shenyang, China
Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Our original reason for going to Shenyang was because it was an easy hub to fly into, we could stop and see a few things, and then head down to Dandong via bus, stopping at the Benxi underwater caves along the way.   But once we got to China, we realized how difficult it was to get around, and we decided to nix the whole bus/cave idea and we just went straight to Dandong from Shenyang. 

Shenyang is a big city, China's 3rd biggest city we were told.  I couldn't believe that, and googled it online when i got back.... As far as I can tell, Shenyang is NOT China's 3rd biggest city.  

ouch!!!

Oh Shenyang presented a number of problems, right off the bat.  We took a bus from the airport to the city, but were stranded when all the cab drivers refused to take us to our hotel.  The hotel we had booked at was suppose to be quite famous, but apparently the address was a bit confusing and no one could understand it.  After attempting to hail cabs for 45 minutes, I went into a sports store to ask if I could get some help re-translating the address.  I was greeted by a group of college-age students who argued amongst themselves about not having good enough English to help out.  Finally, a sweet girl stepped forward and tried to help me translate the address (I had the names written out in letters, and she was rewriting them into the Chinese characters.)  I went back out to the street and tried again to hail a cab, but was turned away once again.  But this time, my friends from the sports store were watching from the window.  One of them came out and tried to explain, but the cab driver wanted nothing to do with the mess.  In the end, we ended up getting a ride from one of the staff members at the store.  He had the smallest car I've ever seen, and we piled in with our suitcases.  He put his one English CD in the stereo, and we drove in silence (due to the language barrier), with crazy techno music playing in the background.  I honestly felt like I was part of a circus video, and that clowns were going to jump out of the trunk as soon as we came to a red light.

being a camel

When we got to the hotel, the staff said they didn't have our reservation.  Before I knew it they were handing me the phone.  I figured they had called a member of their staff who could speak English, or perhaps their manager.  But no.  They had called the only other foreigners staying in the hotel.  The guy on the phone was rather rude, asking me what I wanted.  Since I assumed he was the manager, I just started explaining how we were trying to check in, but there seemed to be a problem with the reservation. 

taking it easy

He said he'd send someone down in a bit.  Oh goodness, was I ever embarrassed when his finance came down to help us sort out the mess, explaining that she indeed was NOT the manager.  The whole check in process ended up taking us about 2 hours, and they ended up calling down the other foreigners twice.  I was so humiliated.

After that struggle, we didn't have any choice except to go consume stupendous amounts of food and drinks, and then go into the local COSCO pretending to be blind and pregnant.  I can't say I'm necessarily proud of this decision, but it sure helped us feel better at the time.  This was just one of the few examples to show what CHINA does to a person....

(thank goodness we had the beautiful botanical gardens to enjoy....the only thing actually worth taking pictures of in this place...)