The internet said that the journey would be two and a half hours, but it wasn't. I'm pretty sure it was a mistake on our part, and it was just lucky that there was somebody sitting quite near to us who spoke English and could confirm that the city the train pulled into two and a half hours into our journey wasn't actually Dandong - we came pretty close to actually getting off the train, in the wrong town, an hour and a half away from where we were supposed to be. The journey was a nice ride through the countryside and we got to see lots of little hamlets and slightly larger towns. One thing I noticed about China is that the towns here don't have an architecture that is distinct from that of cities, like England has. Here, a town just looks like somebody took a slice of city cake and put it somewhere in the country.

Anyway we arrived and found our hotel, a giant Gort-looking robot that sat near to the Yalu River, the stretch of water that seperates this part of China from North Korea. We realised pretty quickly that we could actually see the DPRK from our room, so we stared for a bit. It was quite strange to see because it was almost completely dark after about 9pm. When you compare that with the buzzing luminescence of any town in China, it's very odd. From across the water, Dandong must have looked like Las Vegas to the North Koreans. The room was very nice - none of the damp toilets smells that you can sometimes fall foul to in hotel rooms. We had access to South Korean television, which was absolutely wonderful - we managed to catch the first episode of the Haha Mong Show, hosted by the eponymous Haha and MC Mong - and also North Korean TV, which tellingly was just a black screen. Apparently, TV doesn't start in the DPRK till 5pm, but even after that there was nothing. I became slightly obsessed with North Korea during the stay in Dandong, only because we were so tantalisingly close to the reclusive country. You could look out of the window, and it was right there. The country everyone in this area is terrified of. How could you not stare?

Dandong is about 1/10th of the size of Shenyang, but you couldn't tell from how people acted. We were on the receiving end of much less stares than we normally get in Shenyang, which we weren't expecting. The only real difference we could see was the price -taxis were a full 3 yuan cheaper than in Shenyang, and food was also a lot cheaper. The city itself was really nice as well - much cleaner and fresher than Shenyang, and much friendlier. The air was more polluted during our trip, but just across the river we could see lots of power stations doing their business, so I blame North Korea for that.

First day there, we decided to walk down to the river. On the riverside there were kite stalls set up, boat rides, and most hilariously, all sorts of adverts facing North Korea. Adverts for apartments, massive neon signs facing their way (and away from the city proper), and at night the bridge between China and North Korea was lit up with garish colour changing lights, while the people on the other side don't even have electricity. It had the feel of a seaside town, that's how you could best describe Dandong. We found a ticket office offering boat rides, ostensibly to ride on the river, but was actually just a way to get a closer look at North Korea. We thought that we'd do this so we paid our money, and found the smallish boat that we'd be riding on. We saw North Korean boats riding quite close to the Chinese shore, much more packed than the Chinese ones were. Everyone on both sides would exchange waves, then the boat would return to it's own country. We set off with a family, a young teenage couple, and two drivers, towards the shore of North Korea. We rode around in the water for a bit, slowing down when we reached the garish painted pastel shades of the broken-down houses, the desolate power stations and entire lack of balloons, juxtaposed with the comparatively flashly apartments, clean white pavillions, and massive red balloons. We saw people cleaning their clothes in the river, children running parallel with our boat, all sorts of things. It was as I saw the children sitting barefoot, covering their faces with their coats and waving, when I started to think that actually the boat ride was just making me feel depressed, to the point of regret. Then the music started. Eighties hair metal, guitar and drum solos aplenty, accompanied by the arresting visuals of a broken country. We were riding along, luminous life jackets strapped, ramping through the waves and watching poor people live their lives, all to the soundtrack of an eighties frat movie. I felt like the fattest American possible, staring at the poor people, as I rode in a boat that probably cost more than the houses I was staring at. Afterwards, Katy agreed that she felt awful too, and it became a sort of low-point of the trip.

Everything that rides the river has a small flag somewhere on it, and the boats never got too close to each other, so there was no chance for swaps. We took a walk along the Sino-Korea Friendship bridge, which was destroyed during the Korea war. There is a bridge that is still open to this day just next to the friendship bridge, but for obvious reasons this bridge is not accessible to members of the public. At the end of the Friendship bridge some enterprising voyeurs have set up high-powered binoculars through which, for a small fee, you can stare at North Koreans close-up, treating the country like some enormous poverty-stricken zoo. I paid my money, and got to stare at Koreans riding their bikes (which according to the internet they aren't allowed to do), riding the ferris wheel (the same ferris wheel that according to the internet never runs), and playing. So don't always believe what you read.

We found food that night and the next morning we decided to set off for the Hushan (Tiger Mountain) Great Wall, a portion of the Great Wall that is not quite so packed with the tourists, and much less famous. Or so it was, according to the internet. You come to learn after actually visiting places here that everything you read about China on the internet is about ten years out of date. We went to Hushan, expecting to hike up a hill and find some out-of-the-way part of the wall that no-one else had seen. Instead we found a lot of people, drinks sellers, Korean costume booths, and other things. It was still very nice though, nicer in fact than Badaling - the more famous portion of the Wall. Once we'd got to the top of the Wall after much puffing, much sweating, and many pictures with Chinese people (just the ticket when you're moist with sweat and flushed red with exertion), we enjoyed the view and the breeze from the nearby Yalu River. We stared at the DPRK some more, and another person had set up a pair of binoculars to do some more staring (at nothing in particular - just fields and shacks), and after we'd dried and cooled down a little, we headed back down.

Expecting to find taxis at the bottom of the Hushan wall, we were slightly disappointed to discover that there were none. All we could find was a packed bus stop. We determined from the sign that the bus that arrived here would take back us to Dandong, so we waited in earnest for it's arrival. It wasn't long before a smallish bus arrived, and from the thrust of the crowd that enveloped the tiny vehicle we decided that we should try and get a place on it. After some punches, and more than one elbow to the face of the girl in glasses next to me, we both pushed our way on to the ever-tightening confines of the bus. More and more people just kept piling on, and fitting in somewhere into it's tiny insides. We both somehow managed to get seats, albeit next to different people, and 5 yuan and 45 minutes later we were back in Dandong, eating nice food and wandering around the town, exhausted from our day.

One last thing - the breakfasts in the hotel were nice, on the days when toast was available. You could get scrambled egg, rice, toast, peanuts, all kinds of gorgeous things available, and all in a massive revolving restaurant! What more could you want? When on Sunday we went to the restaurant, there was no toast and no restaurant revolutions. I was pretty gutted that day, but on Monday there was toast and revolutions, and we sat there eating toast with scrambled eggs and slowly revolving away from staring at DPRK, which is all that everybody seemed to do in our hotel. In fact, as nice as Dandong was, it was obvious that nobody would ever go there if it wasn't so close to North Korea.

Xie xie! Rob