Panjin
On a wonderful Monday morning (Mondays are wonderful when you have them off and when you live in a country with 1.3 billion people), I, along with three other friends, began our journey to Panjin, China. If you google "Panjin" you'll see a beautifully photoshopped version of a crimson red beach. Any avid traveler will pretty much immediately be mezmorized into visiting this magical seepweed paradise based on the photos alone. Panjin, located in the northern Liaoning province, is a coastal town which not only offers a red beach but also a plethora of fresh and incredibly affordable seafood. Thus, upon arrival to Panjin, off to a seafood restaurant we went. We walked into a small restaurant with an abundance of crustaceans gazing at us in tanks and chose our preferred victims to be stuffed with garlic. I still get a bit squeamish with destroying and pulling apart things with eyes so I had to be babied by my friends and assisted in the process. All in all, it was pretty decent and we happily reeked of garlic and the ocean upon leaving.
Post-food coma, we got into a cab to bring us to the red beach. Upon first glance at the seepweed, we were a little disappointed - to directly quote from one of my friends, "it looks like a field on an English farm after being burned". As we walked closer, the red hues became more evident but it was nowhere near as red as advertised on the travel websites. We lingered around the pier area and relaxed on a bench for about an hour before we realized there was a sightseeing bus that takes you around the wetlands. Unfortunately, not knowing this means we didn't really have enough time to go around the entirety of the vicinity so we sort of just wandered within the 3 km to the entrance. Overall, I'd recommend it as a nice day walking around: the obligatory posing with locals in cheesy photos, decent seafood, and a nice breath of unpolluted fresh air.
tldr; there's a sightseeing bus so don't hang around the entrance, pretty good seafood, and beach that is red but requires filters to look like any images on google.
