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Published: July 27th 2009
May 4th Square Sculpture
This sculpture is titled, the Wind in May...Our first stop is Qingdao (青岛; 青島; QīngDǎo; TsingTao), easily one of the most beautiful cities we have seen in China. Old town has a strong European influence from the Germans (hence the beer) and it reminds us both of southern California, around the Laguna Beach area, or even a little like Carmel by the Sea as the multitude of beaches are littered with high rocky hillsides, huge boulders and craggy shoreline. The weather is also beach-like; it's hazy in the morning, warms up nicely in the afternoon to dripping sweat temps, and then cools down in the evening so walks are enjoyable. I can see why this is one of the most popular holiday resort areas in all of China. But the beaches themselves, are, well, these aren't beaches like we are used to, these beaches are more like lunar landscapes dotted with dark sand and lots of mud - but who can be picky, it's China!
Qingdao lies on the southern tip of China's Shandong Peninsula, located in JiaoZhou Bay facing the Yellow Sea. The city has seven urban districts and a population of eight million. Way back in 1891 the imperial court of Qing sent troops
here for some fun in the sun and turned what used to be a small fishing village into the party town it is today. It was also occupied at one time by invading Japanese back in WWI, 1914. It flip-flopped again and reverted back to Chinese rule in 1922 and then got occupied again by Japan during WWII. It's no wonder these folks love to drink...after World War II Qingdao served as the headquarters of the Western Pacific Fleet of the US Navy. Yes, you got that right - the US Navy!
Qingdao is well known for its European architecture and attractive coastal landscape. In 2008, Qingdao hosted the Sailing Regattas of the 29th Olympic Games as well as the 13th Paralympic Games and in 2009 welcomes sailors from the Volvo Ocean Race (VOR 2008-2009).
After an all night train ride where we slept in a bunk with four other folks (two of whom were having a sawing logs competition), we departed groggy, hungry, and in need of a shower. Once we snagged an English map and a taxi, a half hour ride up into the hills took us to our hotel. I found this gem on my
fav site for lodging,
Hotels.com, and it's actually a high rise with condo's that have been turned into hotel rooms. At the Qingdao 52nd Square Meter Apartments, our room has a King bed and another twin bed, a small kitchen, nice bathroom, and a beautiful view of the seaside (for about $100 a night, which is expensive for China).
Tsingtao Beer There are two main sections for eating and drinking here, one is called Beer Street and the other is called Restaurant Street (I'm not kidding...). We went to Beer Street, the home of the Tsingtao museum and the Birthplace of Beer Culture (as one place likes to call themselves), but we were quite disappointed because even here there are no bars, only huge, sparsely filled restaurants where they will serve you beer if you are having a meal. We ended up eating a light dinner (we've both made the decision to go vegetarian until we begin our next semester of teaching) and hopping from place to place having beers until they realized we weren't eating and they politely nudged us along. Our last stop for the evening was the highlight of the night.
At the Tsingtao Beer
Bar (alas, it's really a restaurant), we were given a beautiful upstairs table with dazzling view of the street below, but after we just ordered beers we were politely shuffled over to a back corner booth across from the restrooms. But even from our little cubby hole two foreigners can not be missed, and soon a two piece band dropped by and played us a nice love song (we recognized the phrase, "Wo ai ni"). We tipped them and gave them some cigarettes, laughed and took pics of the menu because there is just no way to describe the food over here, enjoyed the famous local beer and wondered why it's called Beer Street at all. On the way home we walked over some really artsy manhole covers and the bright neon lights and big crowds added to a festive street atmosphere.
Beaches The next day we walked all over the city as we headed towards the famous coastline of Qingdao. The Chinese love to relax at the beach, although a day at the beach here is more like camping than sunbathing. They bring the whole family, set up their tents and umbrellas, bbq grills, floats, soccer balls, toys,
shovels, and dig in for the entire weekend. Whatever else they need they can buy from the thousands of tiny stalls up and down the coastline selling everything from fruit crepes (delicious!), to grilled stingray and squid on a stick, the usual drinks, packaged and raw snacks, sunglasses, batteries, hats, and shells. Lots of smelly, squirmy, shiny, painted shells.
They have a passion for shells here and vendors drop down a black cloth on the sidewalk, or use large baskets to hold all their booty, and sell shells of every type and trinket you can imagine, most of which are tied onto a red string and worn around the neck with a whistle attached so everyone knows you're coming. There is a popular pier here that leads to the famous Tsingtao beer shack and along with the hundreds of souvenir sellers there are also divers who are selling the beautiful shells they caught themselves that morning. It's crowded, hot, smelly, and loud - but interesting. Pretty much like the beaches back home during the peak season...😊
All the beaches are numbered, so much for imagination, and they are not in order either, so our all-day walk along the
famous shoreline sidewalk took us by #'s 1 (the most popular), #6 (small scallop-shaped), #2 (most beautiful but less crowded) and several little beach resort areas chock full with thousands of sunbathing folks along with - brides getting their wedding photos taken! Everywhere we looked wedding parties are posing for wedding pictures, we counted over fourteen pairs at one little rocky area alone. It's customary here to take all the wedding pictures weeks before the actual ceremony and many couples want the same scenery and look so the weekends are mobbed with wedding parties, photographers, and support entourage. It's a huge business here, and quite entertaining too. In just a few minutes we watched a bride and groom laugh and run towards the cameras, then suddenly she tripped on her dress and her corsage exploded sending flowers everywhere into the surf. Kids climbing on the scenic rocks inadvertently pop their heads into the photos, veils fly off and away, and we always get a chuckle when we see the tennis shoes and jean shorts underneath the wedding dresses. Haven't seen a fight yet, but plenty of ruined dresses, soaked leather shoes, slips and falls, exploding corsages, and lots of sitting
and waiting and sweating and smiling, always smiling.
The Chinese love to play at the beach but very few of them can actually swim apparently. As some of the pictures show, the water is only knee-to-waist deep for almost half a mile out so there is bouncing and weaving and bobbing, but no swimming. We also see bathing suits of all types, styles, and colors, but almost none of these are bikini-style. The Chinese just don't do bikini's - plenty of speedo's for the guys (Jenn says Yeah!!) but two piece's are rare. One beach had a special area sectioned off for volleyball, and they even had their own version of muscle beach too. But most beach time is spent walking with the family, crouching down and digging in between rocks and mud for creatures of some sort, which they save in containers of every kind for cooking later or eating on the spot. Reminded me of Italy where whole families bring forks and spoons and dig into the cliff side of the Adriatic for their lunch. Or, they would save the crustaceans for later to be tossed, live and squirming, onto pizza.
Destroyer's, Tanks, and Planes While
Our first Tsingtao...
It was hot, we were parched. Our first Tsingtao's of our vacation were at this purple, opulent hotel called the Qingdao Vienna. They were cold and cost 25yuan each (about 3.50 for a 600ml bottle)... walking the coastline, we spotted two large Chinese Destroyer's and a submarine and discovered the Naval Museum. After ten years in the U.S. Navy, to see any Chinese military weapons up close was a rare treat. I don't remember even seeing photos of Chinese ships, much less torpedos or surface to air missiles. These are People's Liberation Army Navy ships the museum is operated by the Navy and located at a former naval base at Qingdao. It features several very interesting ships, including former US and Soviet vessels. In addition to the pics I took, this museum includes a submarine (reported to be a 'ROMEO' class numbered 229), an additional destroyer or frigate, a 'Huanfeng' class missile boat numbered 3101 (a Chinese copy of the Soviet 'OSA I' class), various small craft, and numerous vehicles, tanks, aircraft, and other weapons. Even Jenn had a great time climbing all over these huge toys and I had her humming Anchor's Away all afternoon.
While trekking around Qindao for three days we read up on the local scene and found a fun bar called Club New York, a not-so-fun and highly overrated place called Corner Jazz Club (great french fries but little
Beer bottle sculpture...
This Chinese symbol means something but nobody knew English, but it is made from beer bottles... else), and had some of the best Italian food we've had (Salvatore's Italian Restaurant) since we toasted to our China adventure seven months ago in NYC! Had a great time here and are now headed back to Jinan and then onto Zhenjiang to visit the famous Shaolin Temple - the home of Kung Fu!
Ciao, Bella!
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