Very many cities in China have a Zhongshan Park 中山公园 (perhaps the most famous is Beijing’s Zhongshan Park near the Forbidden City). In honour of the Chinese Republic’s first president, Sun-Yat-sen, it became a standard practice to name public parks after the revered Dr Sun, who within China is better known by the name Sun Zhongshan.
Dalian’s Zhongshan Park is certainly one of the most chilled-out and slow-paced of the parks named in celebration of “the Father of Modern China”. Entrance to the park is from Huanghe Lu, one of Dalian’s busiest, traffic-heavy roads. Once you come under the canopy of its large trees you only need to penetrate the park’s perimeters by the smallest of distances to put the constant noise and shuffling of traffic on Huanghe behind you.
The first thing that my eyes lit on as I followed the park’s curving pathway was the rich variety of plant life in the park’s garden. It had lots of different Chinese natives but interspersed with these were some exotics like, of all things, pockets of the unforgiving prickly-pointed Mexican yucca (below). Seats, tables and and the occasional gazebo can be found within the park. I liked some of the (minimalist) sculptures too.
Of Zhongshan Park’s many patrons using the park, two groups were of most interest to me. The park’s central square bordered by neat hedges, Weeping Willows and Conifers, was the setting for numerous games of cards – people engrossed in playing cards being watched by equally engrossed onlookers. I noticed, here and elsewhere in this city, the penchant for card games by the locals (cf. the preferred pastime for Liaoning’s other principal city, Shenyang, which is checkers). The card players in the park seemed wholly serious about their games, notwithstanding the fact that no money appeared to be waged on the outcomes.
Meanwhile, diagonally across from the numerous, endless “no stakes” games of poker, or whatever the preferred Chinese card game is in this region (it wasn’t Mah-jong they were playing, I could see that!), an assembly of local seniors were hard at it constructing a commendable Sino-version of “Dad’s Army”, or so it appeared to this unenlightened Júwàirén✻. Led by a no doubt self-appointed “sergeant-major”, the mainly septuagenarian band were strenuously and loudly put through their paces in a set of vigorous military-style exercises…hup, two, hup, two stuff straight from the US military drill-book. 
Footnote: I did find one slightly discordant note jarring ever so slightly with the tranquility and harmony of Zhongshan Park. Just about everywhere you walked around the park, you were made aware of its proximity. Towering over the park like a nebulous cloud was a very tall, oddly scientific-looking building…it’s edifice had a decidedly technocratic countenance to it but was a very idiosyncratic, anachronistic appearance indeed. I looked at it more closely later from outside the park, I’m not sure but it may have been a hospital(?) with a wacky space-age facade, but it looked like something out of “The Jetsons” AD2119 to me.
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✻ unlike the stereotype Dad’s Army from 1960s British television though, these didn’t seem like a bunch of aged clowns bungling their drill, generally making a hash of things and tripping over their own shoelaces…they were totally serious and dedicated trainers from the look of it
Lǚshùn, Lüshan, Lvshunov (旅顺) – variations of nomenclature for a settlement with a long, multinational history as highly prized first-rate port and a key strategic location on the Northeast coast of Asia. For some tourists, Lǚshùn is merely a peninsula appendage to a trip to Dalian, Liaoning’s second city. Popular for visitors from China, Russia and Japan – at the crossroads of the three differing cultures – and for anyone, anywhere, interested in the modern history of the region.
But for those less interested in the story of the North Asian powers’ struggle for supremacy in Port Arthur (Lǚshùn’s former name under the Russians), there are plenty of other diversions and attractions to fill in a day in the Lǚshùn area. Crossing that spectacular, breathtaking bridge that separates Dalian from Lǚshùn, passing some impressive modern residential monoliths (obviously a lot of new estates cropping up recently), we made not for Lǚshùn’s history-soaked prison or museum…our first stop was at a submarine base at the ports with a large aged submarine in pride of place. On first sighting the displayed veteran U-boat I was initially under the misapprehension that it was a Japanese World War 2 sub left behind by the Japanese Navy or perhaps captured by the Chinese at the war’s end (a sort of spoils of war on show won from the vanquished foe). 
On taking the tour through the permanently moored submarine (opened for inspection at both ends of the craft), I soon realised I was wide of the mark. This was in fact a Chinese naval submarine, a Type-033 submarine actually (which is probably quite significant detail to your average, obsessed submarine aficionado)※. And the whole enterprise, known as the Lushun Submarine Museum (established 2015), is a new feature for China (the country’s first museum to exhibit naval military culture). 
The other attraction at the museum vying with the ex-service sub is a submarine simulation exhibit, a room devoted to recreating a realistic'(sic) submarine cruise. Severe looking naval servicemen man the entrance, herding waves of visitors in and out in regimented fashion. The tightly packed paying punters in the room jockey for the best posy to take pictures of the ‘demo’: comprising the virtual submarine, with its commander barking orders to his crew, steering a safe sea-course between a host of pop-up enemy frigates while notching up the odd warship ‘kill’ itself…in effect a large scale video game on a super-wide screen with all the bells and whistles, not to mention the “real-life” sound and lighting effects to conjure up the appropriate atmosphere.
After the Submarine Centre we were ready for a more hands-on 3D animation (or at least that was the view of the tour organisers). We piled out of the bus and into what ostensibly was a commercial building. Inside we were led to a room to indulge our inner-nine-year-old in a video game. We were equipped with sonic “ray guns” (or whatever the equivalent current millennial term is) and invited to pretend that we were riders on an out of control roller coaster. Our seats rocked and rolled violently tossing us to and fro…we sat there immovable, gaining what vicarious pleasure we could muster by ‘zapping’ 10,000 demons each, only to find ourselves desperately trying to dodge the infinite number of remaining malevolent dragons, zombies and other miscellaneous monsters hurtling towards us without respite. Most of the adult Chinese tourists seemed to be totally captivated by the virtual “make-believe” alternate universe, whereas for me it was, at the least, a novel, “one-off” experience, considering I am someone with no interest in ‘civilised’ computer games, let alone ever contemplated visiting a fantasy arcade venue to play games of a unrelentingly violent nature.
Russian Street (Russian Lu), or as it is sometimes rendered, Russian Style Street or Russian Custom Street, is a lingering reminder of the days the city of Dalian was an outpost of Moscow. Today the connexion to an erstwhile Russia is most visually embodied in this single street to the north of Shengli Qiào (Shengli Bridge), near Dalian’s Xigang district.
The start of the street is marked by (what I imagine was once a very grand but what is these days) a large, aged Russian mansion. A sign in front of it proclaims the Russian heritage, русский. Russian Street is a longish, commercial street (with a short side lane appended to it) near the city ports. Rows of stalls line up on the inside of the street in front of the bricks and mortar shop buildings. It’s a street restricted to pedestrian traffic, although this in no way hinders the bike and scooter riders and the odd delivery van with its Russian goods. 
Virtually all of Russian Street’s gift shops sell more or less identical merchandise – moon cakes in highly decorative boxes, inexpensive bars of Russian chocolate (going at 10CN¥)
Half-way down there’s a authentic Russian pectopaH (restaurant)…a lot of visitors don’t venture much further than this point and it’s a good deal less busy than than the Shengli bridge end. Russian Custom Street ends at a roundabout with a large official-looking building of state, there are a couple of small coffee shops and a number of food outlets spread out along the thoroughfare. 
