Dalian

We were particularly interested in this place, since we nearly ended up working here. It's very close to North Korea, and considerably richer than the area around it. Come here if you want to see Japanese, Koreans and Russians (or ideally a mixture of all of them).

It's a pleasant place, and quite western friendly. We noticed that a lot more people seem to be driving cars - more than we felt in Shanghai.

We are looking forward to trying out the "Coffee and Curry" restaurant tonight, which is advertised in the Lonely Planet (It had better still be there, Lonely Planet, unlike most other useful places which seem to have vanished from reality!)

We hope you are all well, and starting to think how nice it will be to see you all again.