Advertisement
Published: July 31st 2006
Before we begin a tale bound to shock, amaze and generally entertain the masses, we shall take a journey back in time with a few photos recently collected from Emporium de Scott... or Scottie's memory card as it is more commonly known. So please check the photos below to see fresh images of the filth you've already read about in the
previous entry.
The tale begins with two mildly tired individuals meeting at Anyang station at 9:30am on the morning of Friday the 27th of July. Boarding a train bound for Seoul they made their way to Seoksu, there boarding a bus destined for Incheon International Airport they realised their recent air ticket purchases. China would be the final destination and a mighty fine time would be had... or at least they thought... let's see how it panned out.
Apon take off, China Eastern Airlines flight MU560 was greeted by the remainder of the typhoon and rainy season in Korea. Merely 10 seconds after take off (a rather steep ascent by our pilot for the day) the plane began to shake as though passing through an area of slight turbulence and children began to squeal sporadically. The two moral criminals
Jeeheun
A buddy of Scott's whom I have metin question, being teachers, were hoping not to experience squealing children. Thus the tale begins...
Completing their 1 hour flight to Qingdao, China, the two disembarked the aircraft and continued the waffle that had continued to flow insescently from their mouths. As they were slightly tired from work and the night out before they were indeed in fine form for mindless discussion. This was had in plentiful suply.
Reaching Imigration Inspection in China both were examined closely, myself more so. My passport was scanned several times, my ID checked and looked over suspisciously. The other mind in question, Paul, was looked over comparitively loosely. However, as I proceeded towards his position and we made the desision to move on, he was approached, his passport examined again, possibly due to my disceveled appearance. However, we were both cleared of any charges we may have been accused of and allowed to continue our existence as the lowly tourists we had become.
As we attempted to pass through the arrival gates we were assailed by a taxi fare recruiter with no English bar the word "taxi driver". Attempting to shake her off we made a customary post flight visit to
Pride
One night of pride for the land we came from... the little boys' wee wee room, unsuccessfully. Accepting her (exhorbinant) fare, we were directed to a waiting car. After a 30-40 minute ride we arrived at a hotel made known to us by Fiona (thank you). It was a wonderful place, for the grand total of 400yuan ($50) per night between us. We had 24 hour hot water, one of the porters could speak English and it was VERY clean. Some disappointments will become apparent as the story progresses :P. We checked in for a night and then went for a small walk around the area. Unfortunately, being quite a distance from the city centre we were surrounded by spare parts suppliers for many unknown mechanical doodads and not much else.
Making the most of our surroundings we made our way to one of two restraunts we had seen and to our surprise, greeted by an excelent speaker of English with the words "Welcome to China". This was wonderful for both of us, because to my regret, neither of us speak any Chinese. We had a meal of some sort of pastry which we could choose to fill with a meaty substance that came out with it and some
Paul and Lingling
This is David (from the previous blog)'s girlfriend. (from the night I can't remember) sort of dim sim look-a-likes. Both were wonderful, and being in Qingdao (Tsingtao), we simply had to savour the moment to enjoy China's most famous beer "Tsingtao Beer". Just as it is in Melbourne, it is one of the worlds tastiest beers.
Following this we returned to our haunt and had a short nap. We had asked the aforementioned porter if there were places to go out in the area but he didn't know any. However, 10 minutes later we recieved a knock on the door and he gave us a business card he had dug up on our behalf belonging to a bar called "FJ Bros", which we promtply accepted and decided to visit (largely based on the line "Thursday Nights: Latin Music". Henceforth, the drama begins...
The taxi dropped us off at the end of a road and we were left to find the bar. We tried for a while, and were followed for some time by mother and child claiming to be poor and in need of money. Having both previously experienced this sort of thing we continued our search for the bar. Eventually after asking several people, who had no idea, we finally discovered
Welcome to China
Out the window of our first hotel it ourselves. It was a fantastic place, we met the manager (a Korean), the bartenders (Chinese from various cities) and a couple of American teachers (a married couple, featured in the visual section of this account). The americans gave us a copy of Qingdao's English magazine "Red Star" which contains not only news but a guide to the city for tourists and diners alike. This tome was dubbed "The Bible" by the two incapable foriegners in question. We moved on after a couple of jugs of Tsingdao (at $5 each :P) to a bar recommended by the Americans. Named "King's Head", quite obviously an English themed bar, it also had an open mic night. This was great and we were greeted from folk around the world. We also had toasties... a wonderful experience. The bar had both Tsingdao and... wait for it my patriotic fools... FOSTERS on tap. I know we don't drink it (for obvious reasons), but thinking of you all I took a photo (see below). As those of you who drink with me know, I very rarely consume beer. The reason being, a become inhibriated and a little silly. However, this night I was drinking with Paul
FJ Bros
This is the Korean manager of the first bar we went to again and drinking beer accordingly. After quite a few pints I become confident and for some reason attempted to chat to(up) a Chinese girl in the bar who had no English... but, who was drinking Fosters... that's enough is it not? Needless to say I failed dismally and learned exactly why I do not go to bars or chat to the females who frequent them. Moving home, the real drama began.
Two slightly disinhibited foriegners made their way back to the hotel after a good night and recieved a phone call... It was from a female professing massages. Coming to our door and greeted by one "Paul" she was initially turned away. However, he relayed this news to myself how asked what sort of lady she was, bad move. He replied "gorgeous" and being inhibriated as we were, we thought she was simply offering a massage, hehe. She was questioned about price by the one and only Irishman. Deciding it was cheap we invited her in. She called her friend and everything went wrong from there. It all started out friendly, but when things got a little heavy and services were offered we both declined and sent the two
Americans
These are the Americans we met who helped us out, singing in "The King's Head" packing with their "(bad)massage only" fee. Passing the test we were quite proud of ourselves. Thus the next day begins...
We had only booked one night in our hotel and decided to move. We had recieved some tips from our American guides and tried to find a hotel they had recomended. Failing, we managed to speak to a German man on the beach we were walking, searching for the hotel. He directed us in the direction of an area supposedly carpeted in hotels. We found one he had recommended, a little too expensive for our taste. Regardless of her own hotel, however, the lady who had recieved us at reception directed us to a couple of hotels. One we could not find, and one was full. We managed to find another with the help of a (very kind) DHL delivery driver and checked in.
After this we made the journey to Qingdao's famous "Beer Street" and had some luncheon. This consisted of two (almost) randomly selected dishes based on my knowledge of two the Chinese charaters in their titles. Both were reasonably palatable to second day China tourists and the beer went down a treat. The street is
named so because it is the site of the original Tsingdao brewery and the current Brewery Museum, which we visited after eating. It was good, we were able to drink fresh beer, see "Mystical Hops" and recieved a free glass.
After this, we consulted the VERY new testament of the bible and proceeded to a restraunt/bar recomended therein, titled "La Luna". This was a French Restraunt... hehe should have known. A very classy place, where tea and drinks cost all of $25 between two. We then proceeded to the bar downstairs where a few drinks were consumed, pool was played and a (mostly) good time was had. Being myself again in this (strangely) wakened state I drank not beer, but wine, whisky, vodka, contreiu, drambuie and something I will inform you of later as my memory fails me at the moment. We played pool against a couple of girls Paul had convinced to play and some guys who wanted to use the table. Results were mixed. After this we sat down again and the music moved from house and other bareable styles to the wonderfully opressive modern version of R&B which is so self-centered and concieted it makes me
angry. I wish I could control this, but that style of music is the only kind in the world that makes me want to fight. I mentioned my dislike of this style, but Paul was enjoying looking at women as he does and not wanting to diminish his night I simply sat back and watched. Eventually after being hounded by Paul some I got a little angry and insisted we leave. Completing the second evening in China.
The following morning we awoke early and headed out to find coffee and found Kena Coffee Bar, the beginning of one more chapter in our adventure. After our Coffee and being treated in English by our host we took a taxi out to the old German area of Qingdao where we saw a few things detailed in photos below. Then down to Luxun Park, a park dedicated to the man named in the title. After this little foray into tourism we had another coffee and a beer in a cafe on the beach and walked down to one of the swimming beaches nearby. After this we headed out for a bite to eat. This consisted of going to a dumpling restraunt, not
knowing the word for dumplings... requesting everything but... and being asked to order some dumplings. This we did. All the food their was wonderful and we were spoken to by a very cute young Chinese girl sent over by her parents to say hello. She played a word game with us and we played along.
We decided that some more tourism was in order and we moved back near our hotel to take the ferry out into the bay. It was a twenty minute ride, but pleasant. Then we moved up to "Little Fish Park" atop a mountain nearby and got a panaramic view of the city. I also did my first and last souvenir shopping. We follwed this with another trip to our new found coffee bar. The girl was there again and I asked her about a problem I was having with calling a Chinese friend from the hotel. Although we could not solve this, it did provide some framework to talk and while Paul checked his email. We got to know one another a little and she wanted to try and speak more English, so offered to be our "guide" the following day. She offered to
take us back to a restaurant on "Beer Street" where her mother works. "Excellent", we thought and arranged it.
Then we moved on to eat tea and went to a place called "La Villa", probably should have thought about that being a French restaurant as well... hehe. We asked 5 taxi drivers and none knew where at was, but one English speaking Chinese man assisted us and directed the taxi there, thanking him perfusly we moved on. Anyway, the food was good, the atmosphere was calm and the wine was Australian. We moved into the attached bar after tea and had several more beverages.
The following day, we awoke and were transported to the Qingdao aquarium. This wasn't the most wonderful place, yet there were some fish swimming about, bearable. We then jumped into a taxi to meet our new found Chinese friend for lunch. We arrived again on beer street and were introduced to her mother. We then ate, ate and ate until we almost died... but it just kept coming. After this we convinced her to come for a trip to Laoshan, a mountain nearby and on of the founding sites for Taoism. This was a
Dinner
Across from the brewery we took luncheon... this is it, with the Beer Museum in the background... typical temple visit as we did not have the time to climb the mountain, unfortunately. A giant flying-fox was taken by myself and Guojia (the Chinese girl) over the ocean however, which provided for a good view.
Moving then to Jusco, a Japanese store chain similar to KMart, with the intention of buying an alarm clock to wake us for our early flight we took our first bus, which was packed. At Jusco we managed to buy our alarm clock and I purchased some Chinese CD's, "carpe diem" they say. One is the ever famous "12 girls band" and the other a random traditional music CD I picked up.
We then returned Guojia to her workplace and myself and Paul went out for our final meal in China. We decided to go to a "Qingdao Cuisine" restaurant, where we had fried fish and dumplings. We were also served beer in undersized wine glasses.
Then we went back to the coffee bar to keep our previously made appointment to go and sing in a Karaoke room. This we did with Guojia, who sings remarkably better than us... but this is to be expected. However, we first went to
Arty Luncheon
In a random spurt of creativity I took this... a place that again offered "massages" and promptly left, wanting only to sing. Also, karaoke rooms have a bottle shop attached in Qingdao, which I found to be impressive.
Following this we went to bed for our early flight. Our alarm, a morning call (organised by Paul) and a taxi (also organised by Paul) got us to the airport a little early and in need of coffee. In this we partook and boarded our plane back to Korea.
I must mention the weather, which was hot. However, 3 out of 4 days were overcast and a fog descended every night covering everything. However, Sunday was hot and sunny.
Thus the story finishes at my current position, somewhere on the 37th parallel sitting in front of a PC and writing an encylopaedia.
Thank you for reading.
Love, peace and mungbeans.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.126s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 6; qc: 56; dbt: 0.0567s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
