The Empire of Japan occupied the of cities Dalian and Lüshan (or Lvshunkou)※ and in fact a large chunk of China’s North-East for almost the entire first-half of the 20th century. Even now, nearly seventy-five years after the Japanese were vanquished from Chinese Manchuria, travelling around the Liaodong Peninsula, you can readily find the imprint of their former presence.
A conspicuously heinous reminder of the Japanese connection with Dalian (Dairen to the Japanese) and the peninsula can be found at Port Arthur (renamed Ryojun by Japan after its victory in the 1904-05 war with Russia). Specifically this can be seen in the former Russian-built Japanese Prison (now a museum) with its “hanging wall” and other torture devices used by the Japanese Kwantung army against Chinese.
There are other threads linking Dalian to its Japanese (and of course to Russia⍟), but while in Dalian I took time to visit a part of the city with much less unsavoury and more positive connotations of the former Japanese occupancy. We took a taxi from the city centre to a fairly lengthy street called Qiqa Street, not far from the Midtown area…this street is a quaint reminder of Japanese influence and imprint on the city.
Walking along it, I can’t say that much of the architecture in this street looks particularly Japanese in appearance, although to be fair we only had time to explore the western end of the street. The street dog-legs right at one point and heads east for quite a number of blocks in Zhongshan district. However, on our abridged tour we did see a number of Japanese businesses – eateries, hairdressers, and other shops – as the presence of Japanese characters on a number of the shopfronts testify. At least one block of the street has a concentration of these shops with eateries such as the pint-sized JoJo’s Tea (light Japanese meals, run by Chinese staff).
Qiqa Lu also has several buildings unrelated to Japanese culture or cuisine including a Chinese government building and the equivocally named “Paparazzi Who’s the Murderer? This commercial entity comprises a red telephone box at the front of the premises. When you lift the receiver, a metal door to the left swings open to reveal ….? I remain ignorant as to the raison d’être of Paparazzi Who’s the Murderer? Is it a bar, a nightclub, is it a mystery/crime-themed theatre-restaurant? Having not ventured inside, I guess the answer will remain elusive….
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※ Dalian known as Dairen by the Japanese
⍟ Port Arthur, prior to the Russo-Japanese War was home to Tsarist Russia’s Pacific fleet
From the advanced publicity I had envisaged a Chinese version of some kind of swanky, luxurious modern resort complex surrounded by flowing meadows, undulating hills, wooded forest* and a pleasant babbling brook. Imagine my disappointment when we arrived to discover nothing resembling a health farm or even an ashram exuding the enlightenment of the Bhagavistawama. 
The ‘resort’ was in the middle of the township…a dusty side-street off the main drag, it was a series of rundown, crumbling, grimy buildings not suggesting the hot springs country recuperator I was picturing on the way there. 
The rooms were equipped with a brace of hot tubs (large, deep bathtubs really) and apparently there were hot springs below the ground pumping up thermal water. I couldn’t personally verify the bona fides of the springs’ healing powers but I took it at face value. In any case, even if the medicinal therapeutic benefits lacked evidence, it was very welcome just to relax and unwind for an hour or so each day in the heated tub. On my travels in China I haven’t encountered many baths in the hotels and appartments I have stayed in.
Even if it didn’t measure up to my (Western) understanding of a de luxe country hot springs resort, I have to admit that it was certainly a bargain deal and tariff: three meals a day (with the owner family experiencing authentic local tucker at varying odd times), two rooms plus the hot tub facilities for ¥150 per night. Although when the plumbing burst at 3am one night and we ended up almost up to our ankles in water that may or not been from the springs, I did have some fleeting, momentary doubts about our choice. But this can happen anywhere at any time, so I passed it off as part of the experience.
Don’t get me wrong, while the resort’s surface appearance and location may not have not been exactly the ticket, and about as far from a top-of-the-range rural resort you can get, the town and surrounding countryside of Fengcheng did have a certain attraction. A sleepy little Chinese backwater hamlet during the day, takes on a lively night-time ambience with the constant blare of street music reverberating up and down the main street of the town. 
Fengcheng’s natural environs (just a leisurely stroll from the built-up area) have a lot to offer in the way of walks through wilderness, viewing pleasant rivers and streams and some dazzling local fauna. All in all our brief sojourn in Fengcheng was a chill-out, low-key diversion from the urban tourist trail. 
Fengcheng, Liaoning province, is about 35 miles or so north-west of the city of Dandong
Before coming to Dandong, my only exposure to China’s greatest human-made wonder was a day visit years ago to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall near Beijing. So I was interested while in Dandong in taking the opportunity to see a very different and quite remote section of this greatest of walls. I also relished the chance to experience a section of 长城 that would not be maxed out with zillions of formicating tourists. Visitors often complain that seeing the Wall at the more popular sections like Mutianyu, Juyong Pass or Jiankou entails having to manoeuvre round countless numbers of slow-moving or immobile walkers, thus taking the gloss off the unique Chángchéng experience.
We toured the Hushan section (about 15km north-east of Dandong) on a warm midsummer’s day. At the entrance gates to the site (a pseudo-ancient wall edifice created to create the ambience of a historic wall structure), the process of entry was fairly seamless, our tickets, pre-arranged, were purchased on the spot and we moved through the turnstiles and were funnelled into waiting transporters. From there we were whisked off to the start-point (about 700m distance from the gate), passing ambling visitors and a large heroic sculpture positioned about half-way to the Wall’s first part. The tourist start-point contains an impressively restored main tower (the two-storey gate tower).
On the structure itself there was a steady stream of inquisitive visitors eager to climb and explore the Tiger Mountain Great Wall. Well patronised but nothing like the “Boxing Day” crowds and queues in the Beijing district Walls. The only part of the Wall where a slight bottleneck eventuated was two-thirds of the way up to the summit where we had to line up (in a fairly orderly and polite fashion for a Chinese queue) to climb a set of very steep and narrow stairs. Once past there, there wasn’t any further encumbrances impinged on a very smooth climb to the Wall’s highest point.
The authorities don’t want anyone to ‘kindle’ the Great Wall
As I expected, some of the Wall’s floor surfaces were in better condition than others, but it was all still perfectly walkable. From the highest lookout point there are commanding views across the border into the uniformly wide, unpopulated fields of North Korea. The descent down from the summit is mostly very steep and winding. At the foot of the stairs on the eastern (border) side is a raised battlement area containing the relics of a couple of mounted guns that are several centuries past their use-by date.
By Great Wall standards Tiger Mountain isn’t a particular long section compared to others, but it still provided a reasonably testing walk in the hot summer of August even for those of reasonable solid fitness. On the descents especially, there was some steep, narrow and tricky steps requiring a careful and steady step. At the end of the walk, at the car park right on the PDRK border, there is a statue of some significance and nearby two strategically positioned refreshment outlets competing for your business. After a energy sapping morning’s climb there were many takers for a cool beverage. For those of us on an organised tour, a pick-up bus arrived within ten minutes to take us back the start-point, from where we were relayed back to the main gates by a “people mover”.
There is a row of souvenir stalls adjacent to the entrance wall building but unfortunately we were denied a chance to peruse the Wall-related merchandise as we were whisked off again back to the tour bus. If you continue past the Hushan site for a couple of kilometres on the winding Provincial Road north, there are several good vantage points on the side of the road from which to take good, unobscured long shots of the highest watchtowers on the Wall peering out from the mountain’s canopy.