Liaodong a Hot Spot to Cool Off

In the northeast corner of Liaodong Bay, there is a city called Yingkou that boasts to have amazing tourists attractions and booms economy. The most famous tourist attraction of it might be the Spanish Mackerel Circle, actually first I was attracted by its interesting name. Then I was completely intrigued when I saw the description and pictures about this place. Because it is warm temperate zone, the weather is always mild here. With costal lines stretching for 96 kilometers and soft beach, no wonder every year numerous tourists swarm here and take a time off.



I like places with stories, whether they are true or not. To me it’s just another way to tell the beauty and make the place unique. Here almost every tourist spot has a story, the beach, the bridge, how cool is that! Locals have a beautiful legend of Spanish Mackerel Princess. Once upon a time, spanish markerel circle was only a small village, the coastal line was still a straight line. Fisherman would have a magic bead to keep them safe on the sea. One day a fisherman was caught up in a horrible storms and lost his bead.



At this time markerel princess appeared and said, “I like your flute so Let’s make a deal, I’ll help you find the bead and you give me the flute as a swap.”The fisherman agreed but somehow he failed to keep his promise. The princess was furious and asked her fish soldiers eat the shore and kill the fisherman. The shore became crescent shape with thousands of markerels biting. Since then on, every year in 15 August in lunar calendar, tons of spanish markerels would gather here for a while. That’s when people started calling it as the Spanish Markerel Circle. Even today, tourists still can see the statue of Markerel Princess.



If you want to watch the most amazing view of this place, do not miss Island of Immortals. There is a beacon tower that was built in Ming Dynasty. It is 15 meters high. Looking far into the distance from the tower top, blue seas and sky mixing all together, golden sand lying quite on the beach, green acacia trees standing right next to the beach, what a wonderful world! I can’t wait to see the sunset at this spot.



In the Spanish Markerel Circle Zone, there is a magic well as well. Legend has it the well water once made a blind little guy see the light again. Standing on the top of Bixia Mountain and looking down, some dragon lamp pillars line along the road.

According to the tour guide, those pillars are the advice from a Fengshui master. He says the new building block the dragon pulse of the place, resulting the slow development in all aspects, especially economy. After the local government took the advice, this place were seeing a booming economy. I wish I could be a Fengshui Master but that sounds too hard to be true.