So then, find yourself on the appropriately named First Japanese Street and you'll quickly realize there is no city in China quite like Dalian.
   Not far from these leafy sidewalks, and behind Victory Bridge, the newly glitzified Russia Street, complete with hawkers touting mini-Stalin dolls, Stalin lighters and Stalin night lamps recall a time when French-influenced Soviet architects were busy trying to help redecorate Russia's new toehold in Asia. It's a sight to behold.
   Yet for such a young and buoyant city that so clearly delights in its internationalism, Dalian also hides a painful past that is difficult to reconcile. Gleaming streets and fantastic bars full of giggling Korean students, hard-drinking Japanese salarymen and Russian working girls are testimony to one of China's greatest metropolitan success stories.  Dalian has indeed come along way from the brutality of the last century; a century where foreign ambitions and ranging colonialism turned the previously sleepy fishing village into one of Asia's most ferocious and hotly contested battlegrounds.
   In the prosperity and foreigner-friendliness of today, it's difficult to imagine that for sixty years, Japan first, and then Russia, and then Japan again wrested Dalian from one another's grip from the time of the Shimonoseki Treaty of 1894 until the Chinese Government's great triumphant return in the newly unified post-war China.
   Those memories, painful as they must be, are closely held by the Dalianese. Lushun itself, for so long off-limits to foreign visitors has, in the presiding philosophy, been opened up to visitors. Many of them are Japanese, paying their respects to the memories of a war from which Dalian has risen. The city is now home to not only foreign multinationals of every description, but also a centre in China for the study of Japanese language with some 100,000-plus locally educated Japanese speakers. Impressive indeed.
   Today, Dalian is the scene of an entirely different battleground, as foreign investors, lured by the city's quality  infrastructure, upbeat mood and the sweet siren song of government assistance, jostle for position in port, hi-tech and tourism opportunities. There are many Chinese cities touted as the next big thing, the difference being Dalian already feels like it is (it's just waiting for the rest of the world to notice). Last year saw the World Economic Forum staged downtown and Intel began work on a micro-processing plant soon after. It seems Dalian's time in the international spotlight has finally arrived.
   For the idle visitor, Dalian is a fun and colorful city boasting the very best of Northern Chinese hospitality. Even in the melancholy depths of a winter that can freeze your spit before it hits the ground, Dalian and her surprisingly long and lanky people are cheerful in a weekend-kind-of-way that gives the city the oddly warm atmosphere that suggests a fast-approaching holiday.
   Locals insist that Fujiazhuang Fengjingqu is the swankiest beach on the Liaoning Peninsula. It's a pleasant open-roof, double-decker journey from the newly renovated central station and, at more than half a kilometer end to end, it's certainly one of the longer and busier of Dalian's beaches. And while paddling fully-clad in the shallows is a lot of fun, it's the opportunity to farm great transparent jellyfish that seems to get everyone excited. Dalian is celebrated across China as Guangzhou's great competitor in bizarre and often gut-wrenching raw seafood. Again, there is an easily identifiable Japanese influence, but one that causes no resentment here. 
   Dalian is also, and absolutely, an evening city. 
   Summer days are hot and dry. Bleach-white, sun-drenched corner shops are fronted by familiar green-yellow plastic kegs of incredibly cool and tasty draught beer. The first sure sign of summer's impending arrival is the sight of these keg trucks unloading their long-awaited treasures.
   And as the sun goes down, the locals come out.
   Witness to Dalian's special powers of recreation is the seemingly universal desire for beer that can follow early evening feasting. The best places for a drink tend to be within ice-spitting distance of Zhongshan Square, a perfectly round square in the heart of town that is strung with TNT-sized fireworks at the slightest opportunity and then gleefully set off to the intense delight of the family crowds that gather almost every evening.
   After a night of indulgence, you'll be encouraged to tramp up the mountain in Renmin Park or visit the nationally acclaimed aquarium near Tiger Beach Park. 
   The latter is a particularly good option as it provides a perfect opportunity for a drive along the wild seas cliffs on Bin Hai Road. There are four major shopping centres: Tianjin Street, Victory Plaza, Qingniwaqiao, and Xi'an Road. It's when straddled with bags and goodies in these retail temples that Dalian has a chance to show off its other source of civic pride: amazingly tall and stylish girls.Lounging in clusters and chewing gum, these frizzy-haired, Korean-pop-Japanese-punk-loving-all-Dalian girls talk shop and are a highlight of a city that is both young and old, Chinese and North Asian. And like these girls, the city is completely at ease with itself, and already looking forward to the next day off from being the next big thing.

HOW TO GET THERE:
China Southern flies 4 times a day from Baiyun Guangzhou to Dalian (around 3 hours). However, round trips booked in advance can range between 820-1,600RMB return. Go figure. The first flight leaves around 9.15am, the last at 6.55pm.