Oh I do like to be beside the seaside..

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Our next destination was a good old fashioned, traditional holiday destination. We were headed for the coastal town of Qingdao, which is famed for three things; it plays host to a number of China’s best beaches (for those of you who love watching sailing on TV{who doesn’t?} the Olympic sailing is taking place here), it was formerly inhabited by German’s and finally and most importantly, it is home to Tsingtao, the largest brewery in China.

We arrived at the nearby train station and realised that due to China’s strange train ticketing policies (you can’t get a return leg ticket until you arrive at that place) that we were unable to get back to Changzhou until the Tuesday, thereby lengthening our stay by a day and giving us Monday off school. Bonus!! We now knew that we probably had more time than was necessary in this town so we decided that everything we do should be at a laid back pace. This is often very difficult to do here in China as it is not the most relaxed of places. However, we decided to wander down the sea front and walk along the pier that we found. Obvious comparisons were made by me and Shell to lovely Blackpool, although the town of Shell’s birth came out pretty unfavourably.

It felt great to be by the sea and to breathe in some FRESH air. It can not be understated how good the air in Qingdao tasted. Maybe there were some fumes from the nearby brewery adding to the great taste, but this was the first place that we’d been to in China where the sun shone clearly and the weather wasn’t hazy through pollution.

We decided from here to head for the area of the brewery to breathe some more of that precious air in. It is true actually that as we got closer to the brewery you could taste the hops in the air and this was another new China breathing experience.

Before touring the brewery we decided it only fair to taste some of the beer at a restaurant across the road. The beer tasted absolutely brilliant because it was on tap and had to travel no distance at all and 2 jugs later we stumbled across the road to take the tour.

The tour was very informative and gave some background history on the company, basically that it was formed by thirsty Germans that had settled here in 1903. We then saw how the marketing of the brand had developed over the years and finally we saw the production lines at work. We saw tens of thousands of bottles on the conveyor belt being produced. 12 large boxes of 1 litre bottles are produced a minute. This was all very interesting as well as the free samples that were helpfully dotted across the tour route, which helped to keep things interesting. They also had quite an entertaining simulation ‘Drunk room’ where basically the floor was steeply tilted one way which meant that you had to hold on to things as you walked by. It was fun.

At the end of the tour they had a very thoughtfully positioned bar where you could buy the produce. What a good idea. From this point on certain members of our group, namely Chris, were already half-cut, so it felt only natural to continue. We walked around the streets of Qingdao with Chris shouting obsenities at the locals until the early hours.

May 31

As I have mentioned previously Qingdao was founded by Germans and as a result, not only have they bought across the European religion of beer, they’ve also installed the religion of, well, Religion. We thought that visiting some Christian sites whilst we were here would make for an interesting variation to all the Buddhist temples that we visit.

We visited the Protestant Church within the town, where we climbed the Bell Tower which gave underwhelming views of the town and coastline. The windows there were as thin as a post box opening, so gaining views was impossible. Chris enjoyed this experience as his father is a Priest and he bought a Bible in Chinese for him.

From here we stumbled upon a park called Xinhao Shan. The park had two weird, red viewing towers, that were the shape of mushrooms, which until this point were the source of questions as to what they were. The views from these oddly shaped things were actually quite good, with views of the coastline, the clean air (if you can see fresh air) and the European architecture almost made you feel like you weren’t in China.

Inside these viewing towers there was a rotating floor so that you could sit down and still get the full 360 degree experience. One local gentleman didn’t seem to get a grasp of this concept however, putting his drink down on the stationary bar on at least 5 occasions only to have to get up to pick it up again as it passed him by. Fool.

Once we left these gardens we walked to nearby Qingdao Ying Binguan, which is a Guest House made famous because Mao lived here for a month in 1957. The building was well preserved, and another example of typically grand German architecture. China does seem to have a fixation with all things Mao, at any opportunity a tourist attraction will add Mao’s name to something to try to boost numbers. Whilst this place was fairly nice, it would probably make more money and more sense if it was to remain as a Guest House, instead of a Museum with signs saying things like ‘this is a desk where Mao sat’, ‘this is the bed where Mao slept’. Just a desk and a bed really.

After that we just spent the rest of the day just relaxing, by the beach and at the hostel. That night we went to the night market where I treated Michelle to a beautiful bracelet. With numerous bright colours and shells it set me back a full 5 Yuan (35 pence). I spoil that girl. Then back to the hostel to watch a DVD and bed.

Sunday June 1st

One of the major tourist attractions and something that we were looking forward to seeing was the St. Michaels Catholic Church. This morning we thought it would be a good idea to give it a visit. Having found the church fairly easily we were surprised that there were railings all the way round and there seemed no way for tourists to get in. Outrageous. After one full lap of the grounds we saw a gentleman inside and gestured to him that we wanted to come in and look around the building. He however suggested that as it was Sunday morning there was a service going on and it wasn’t really open for tourists. Rubbish. They should have put the service on hold, let us have a look around then, restarted where they left off. They were just being difficult.

Seriously however it was quite a big and stupid oversight on our part to think ‘Hmm, it’s Sunday morning, lets go have a look at the church, can’t think of any reason why this isn’t a good idea.’

So with this disappointment we sauntered out to the Little Qingdao peninsula. The peninsula promised a lighthouse and views of the back on the Qingdao coastline. The walk out to it was fairly long and tiring in which we passed some of Qingdao’s ‘Premier’ attractions. In this country, particularly in the smaller cities (maybe its just more noticeable here), there seems to be a fascination with creating American-style theme parks, but doing a really poor attempt at it. Our home town Changzhou, has China Dinosaur Park, which is marketed in a huge way. The kids at our school love it, but when they show us pictures it seems full of really un-lifelike models of dinosaurs in a seemingly poorly maintained theme park. Qingdao had its own ‘Dinosaur Park’ in the shape of ‘Qingdao Underwater World’. These places are worth completely ignoring but for the astronomical prices they charge for admission. Without fail these places always charge at least twice if not three times as much as some of China’s top attractions; Forbidden City, Beijing: 60 Yuan, Summer Palace, Beijing: 50 Yuan, Terracotta Army, Xi’an: 80 Yuan, Giant Panda Reserve, Chengdu: 30 Yuan. Compared to 120 Yuan for Qingdao Underwater World and 140 Yuan for China Dinosaur Park.

I’m sorry it just strikes me as odd. My rant is now over.

So on our walk we past numerous signs for the magnificent Qingdao Underwater World and then the little place itself, with literally hundreds of people queuing out the door to go in and see models of plastic sharks and the like. It was quite a walk to our aim of Little Qingdao but it was worth it. Because of the position of it, in the middle of the sea, it had a nice refreshing breeze and some really good views of the city from afar. The sight and sound of the sea splashing against the walkway and seeing the spray rise up and over the embankment reminded of going to Skegness on a cold Sunday afternoon. Except it was warm. And clean. But disappointingly there were no 2p machines.

In the evening we went to a Kebab place that was recommended by the Lonely Planet and we were not disappointed. We munched our way through seemingly hundreds of Kebabs, I swear they put some more skewers on our table to make us feel guilty, before sampling Qingdao’s finest produce for the last time.

In summary, Qingdao struck us a strongly un-Chinese type of city. Firstly there was a great amount of architecture that was blatantly not Chinese influenced, but there were other aspects that struck us whilst we here that have not been witnessed anywhere else. The city was a lot more laid back than anywhere in China. Maybe this is partly to do with the fact that it is by the coast, but the people do not seem as competitive here as in other cities. Also this is the first place that we have seen that has provided us with consistently clean skies. In fact the only time the air did not seem completely fresh was when you headed closer to the brewery when it started to smell of beer (which let me tell you was not an altogether negative experience). It was these things that led to us enjoying our extended stay in Qingdao. Definitely one of our favourite places in China.

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Photos

And this before we'd even started drinking
I think it was the fumes

Some old adverts in the museum
Notice the nazi symbol