Life's a Beach

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On Monday, June 18th, I went to the seaside city of Qingdao for a few days with my friends Jen and Claire. What started as a lovely getaway to the sea ended up a bit of a disaster. I'll start at the beginning.

The train ride to Qingdao is only 2.5 hours, we chatted and slept along the way. The train station in Qingdao is near the water, in a prime location. Unfortunately, it's being entirely rebuilt since Qingdao is hosting the sailing races in the 2008 Olympics. So, the train takes you to Sifang, a suburb of Qingdao. When we got off the train, there were people trying to sell us maps and hotel rooms - they can spot a foreigner a mile away! We bought a map and some popsicles and then we took a chance and went with a man who works at a hotel in the city, since we weren't sure where to stay. I did the same thing when I went to Tai'an with Laura and Rachel and it worked out well. It was maybe not a wise choice, since he could have taken us anywhere, but my gut instinct was that it was legitimate, so off we were! We got into the van, then a bunch of Chinese men got in too and we were a little nervous. Then they all got out and a family got in with us, so that was better.

We got into the city, it was only about 15 minutes' ride. The hotel seemed okay, we checked out the room and, despite a less-than-great bathroom, we agreed to stay there. We checked in and headed down to the waterfront. It was a really nice day, and the seaside air was wonderfully cool and clean compared to the heat and smog of Jinan. We went for a walk along the waterfront promenade. We decided to take a bus along the coast to try and get to some better beaches and check out more of the city. It was very convenient having a map with the streets and the bus numbers on it! We made it over to Wusi Square, where a big red sculpture and many kites are found. It was lovely to see all the kites in the sky, and a clear sky at that!

We walked from Wusi Square along the waterfront walkway, making our way back towards the main part of the city. We walked and walked and walked, several hours passed and then it was dinner time! We never even stopped at any of the beaches we passed, which was disappointing, but we figured we could go the next day. We looked for a dinner place along the way, but Jen and Claire didn't like any of the places we saw. We kept thinking we must be getting closer to the pier and the area around our hotel, but we were still a ways away. So we walked up to a major road and caught a bus back to Zhongshan Road. We figured we would surely find a restaurant on that street or nearby. The problem was that it was getting quite late. Our stroll along the waterfront took several hours and next thing we knew, it was dark outside. After checking out a few unappealing restaurants and seeing some that were closed for the day, we ended up eating a KFC! Ugh! But at least it was something! The it was back to the hotel afterwards for a good night's sleep.

The next day, we didn't want to wander too far from the hotel, since our friend Helen was coming in around midday and we were staying near the closed train station and the still-open bus station. We headed to the public park, Zhongshan Gongyuan, and walked around for a couple of hours. It was a nice park, and fairly empty since we were there on a Tuesday morning. Then we made our way back to the bus station. We lingered around there, trying to buy a bus ticket back to Jinan for Wednesday and waiting for Helen's bus to get in. It turns out the bus ticket was the same price as the train ticket but takes twice as long to get to Jinan, so we opted not to buy the bus tickets! Anyway, we expected Helen around noon, but it was about 1:00 when she got in. Unfortunately, her bus came in at the Sifang bus station instead of the Qingdao bus station, so we had to wait a little longer for her. We finally met up near the pier and then were off to the area around the brewery, trying to find a particular French restaurant that Helen had been to the last time she was in Qingdao. We were tired and hungry and we walked by many resturants, but none seemed to fit the bill of what we were looking for. So we ended up going to Pizza Hut! How crazy, two meals in two days at American chain restaurants! Not at all what we had in mind, but we had to eat! Then something wonderful happened. We talked to the manager at Pizza Hut and asked him where the French restaurant is. He gave us a restaurant guide of all the restaurants in Qingdao! So it was a good thing we ate there after all!

Afterwards, we went back to the hotel to change into our going-out clothes and have some cocktails. We got comfortable, chatting and drinking, and almost didn't go out, but in the end we hit the dance floor at the club Babyface. Apparently this is one of a chain of nightclubs in all the major Chinese cities, and the gals had been to the one in Shanghai and Beijing before. It was fun, we got our groove on, and then it was back to the hotel. We hoped for a sunny day at the beach on Wednesday. Just as we were heading to bed, Claire pulled back her blanket and there was a cockroach scurrying across her bed! YIKES! Man do I hate bugs! Needless to say, we went downstairs and said we needed a different room. It was about 1:00 AM, so we weren't going to try to find a different hotel to stay in. We had been in a room with three beds, and Helen was in a single room. So Jen and Claire and I had to split up, because they didn't have any other triple rooms. The man at the front desk, really a boy of about 18 years, led us to the other rooms - a double and a single. He seemed keen on getting Jen to stay in the single room. I wanted to stay in the single, since it was my idea to stay at the roach hotel in the first place, but Jen insisted she would be alright and so we headed to our separate rooms - these ones bug-free!

The next morning, Helen was gone by the time we got up, having caught the 8:00 AM train to Jinan. Claire and I met up with Jen, and Jen relayed the story of getting hit on by the guy that showed us to our rooms. Yikes! It was good to be outta there! Unfortunately (I am using that word a lot in this story as you may have noticed), it was raining when we left the hotel and didn't stop raining all day! So we had to wait til our 8:00 PM train left and had to find a place to spend our time. We went to Cafe Roland on the waterfront, but it turns out that it's a bar that only serves drinks and a few light snacks. Great for a cocktail hour in the evening, not so great at 10:00 AM! The taxi had dropped us off and left, so we had to walk in the rain through a very non-busy part of the city back up to a major road where we could try to find a taxi to get us to another restaurant. We wanted to go to the French restaurant, La Villa. We finally made it, looking like drowned rats, and they opened their doors for us, the first customers of the day. The restaurant is very comfortable and really lovely, and we ended up staying there from about 11:00 AM til about 4:00 PM. We ate lunch and chatted and read and Claire even took a nap on the comfy overstuffed chairs they have. The rain never let up so we stayed there all day.

I wanted to try one of the Italian restaurants on the restaurant guide, so I moved us along and out of La Villa to a restaurant down the road. The place I wanted to go looked like it wasn't there, there was a big construction wall up and the restaurant wasn't visible from the road. So we went to my second choice restaurant. Little did I know that it was in the Crowne Plaza hotel! So it would cost a fortune but at least I would get some good pasta. Well, the restaurant wasn't open yet, so we had to wait in the lobby area until it opened at 5:30 PM. Ugh! Jen and Claire would have preferred to stay at the French restaurant, so I felt bad that I moved us from the comfy zone to the lobby zone. As soon as the Italian restaurant opened, we went in, the first customers of the evening. My pasta came in about 5 minutes - so much for killing some time at the restaurant! I ate my yummy gnocchi and then we went outside and over to the supermarket next door. What do you know, it stopped raining! Just in time for us to catch a taxi back to the train station to leave Qingdao!

We bought some snacks for the train ride, went to the Sifang train station to wait for our train to Jinan, and rehashed the series of disasters that was our Qingdao experience. We were all very much looking forward to returning home to Jinan, and hoping for a much better experience on our next visit to Qingdao! We knew that the next time would have to be better. We called this trip our reconnaissance mission - know we now where to go and definitely where NOT to go in Qingdao!

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