Only an hour flight away from Tianjin, Dalian seemed like the perfect choice for a quick get away! We were not wrong and were lucky enough to have the perfect hosts in some co-workers who were there visiting family.
Day 1 consisted of a 9am flight from the new terminal at Tianjin Airport. Upon arrival to Dalian we first dropped our bags off at our hotel. We stayed at the Aloft hotel, an SPG hotel where we were staying for free courtesy of a few thousand ‘Starpoints’. Despite being a category 1 hotel the hotel was lovely. The room was very spacious and modern with all the facilities you could want from a city centre hotel. From the hotel we went off for a long walk along the coastline and it was gorgeous! It reminded me of a coastal walk along the Cornish coastline and Viv the Oregon coast. The greenery and picturesque coast was definitely something we have missed.
The 10km walk certainly took it out of us so after a bite to eat we were out for the count!
Day 2 was very exciting as we went to Dalian Zoo. We have read a lot of horror stories about Chinese zoos but this proved to be one of the better ones. We met up with some other friends and their children from TJ and spent the day exploring and playing.
After a delightful Japanese meal in the evening we headed back to the hotel to see Europe defeat the US in the Ryder Cup (sorry Viv).
We had a great time in Dalian and is definitely somewhere we will visit again in the future!
Useful info:
TJ to Dalian – Air China – 740RMB return
Flight time: 1 Hour
Tianjin Airport to Central train station via Metro – 30 to 40 minutes
Turners Abroad 
Woah, sounds good — I’ll make a mental note to explore Dalian when we get a chance… Sounds like it would be good to wait until the early summer to go?
(And, yes, we finally made it to Tianjin, ;-)).
So long,
Corinna
Welcome to Tianjin!! I do think it is very lovely in the summer, so says my assistant 🙂