Qingdao: August 9-13, 2013

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On August 9, we boarded a 9:15am high speed train from Shanghai to Qingdao for the 23rd International Qingdao Beer Festival that was opening the following day. As we zipped along, the digital readings at the front of the car alerted us to the speed of the train and the outside temperature. With relief, we watched the temperature slowly drop as the train sped along the countryside from 39 in Shanghai to 35 in Qingdao. But the humidity in Qingdao was much worse than Shanghai, so we ended up sweating a lot more despite moderately lower temperatures.

After arriving, the first thing we did was stand in a very long, sweltering line to buy our tickets to Beijing for August 13. Knowing our hotel wasn't close to the train station, I didn't want to have to return over the next couple days. Communication in Qingdao was much more difficult than Shanghai or Beijing, which made for some pretty frustrating experinces. The first was when we finally got our tickets to Beijing, and I noticed the agent had put our Brazilian visa numbers on the tickets where our passport numbers should have been. Worried we might be given a hassle later if our passport numbers didn't match those on the tickets, I tried asking her to correct the mistake. She couldn't understand. She took our passports and tickets to another agent, talked and pointed at us, it seemed no one understood what the issue was no matter how much pointing and gesturing and slowly speaking as calmly as possible as sweat dripped down my entire body and I could feel a huge line of people behind me getting highly annoyed. Finally, I gave up, and after much gesturing to please just give me back the passports and tickets, it's ok, don't worry about it, we eventually got out of there. Thankfully, the discrepancy did not become an issue for us later.

Being the day before the big beer festival, and around 5pm, the station and the whole city for that matter, was jam packed with people and traffic. Surprisingly, we didn't have too much trouble getting a taxi. I showed the driver our hotels.ca print out with the details of our hotel location, including map. But the driver, and his gang of other cabbies hustling for fares, all crowded around the sheet of paper, and not one of them understood where it was. I pointed to the phone number and asked them to call the hotel for directions, which one of them did and all worked out well. We negotiated a fare, and just as we were about to leave the traffic clogged parking lot, another passenger gets ushered in the front seat. I figured we must be going to hotels close to each other, so no big deal - maybe sharing a cab would bring our fare down. Yeah right.

Traffic was horrendous! It took us two hours to get to the Laozhuancun China Community Art and Culture Hotel! At least it was nice to see subway stations under construction all over the city, so hopefully once the subway is finished Qingdao traffic will vastly improve. Another part of the problem was the other passenger, who even though we couldn't understand exactly what he was saying, we were pretty sure he was complaining a lot about the traffic. And we're also pretty sure he insisted on being dropped off first. His hotel was not close to ours, and added a good 30 minutes to our trip. And while I saw the other passenger paid only a small portion of what the driver had quoted our fare as, the driver insisted I pay him even more than what we had initially agreed upon! I was ready to argue, and started complaining about what I had seen the other passenger pay. But my partner stopped me - the trip had taken so long, and traffic was so bad, he felt bad for the driver and just wanted to relax in our hotel and eat some dinner. So I handed over what he asked without further argument.

The hotel was pretty nice, and one of the things I was looking forward to enjoying was the english speaking staff we had read glowing reviews about. While we were able to communicate ok with most of them, I think the really good english speakers previous guests raved about had since gone on to obtain better employment. We badly needed an english map of the city so we could figure out how to get to the beer festival, which we knew was quite a ways away. Unfortunately, our hotel only had chinese maps. On the bright side, the chinese map had all the bus route numbers listed on it, and came in absolutely essential - we didn't take another taxi in Qingdao. It was buses only from that point on. We walked to the Crown Plaza hotel not far away and got an english map there.

The neighbourhood our hotel was in was a very good place to be. There were lots of great restaurants nearby, and a very lively street in particular called Yunxiao Lu just a couple blocks away. Picking a restaurant that first night was a little intimidating, as we realized we wouldn't find an english menu anywhere. We ended up going to a place with photos of every dish on the wall, so it was easy to point. We got some spicy green vegetables and spicy little clams we saw everyone at restaurant street patios eating. For sure a local dish not to be missed. But oddly, the server didn't bring us rice. When we tried asking for it, she brought us soy sauce instead. I pointed to rice at another table. Luckily, someone at the table next to us understood what we wanted and told the server for us. I thought rice was standard and was brought no matter what. Every other table had bowls of rice. I think there's a misconception amongst some Chinese that white people don't eat rice, only bread. Ridiculous. It was a good meal though, and luckily every server everywhere we went seems to understand the word for "beer."

The next morning we went for breakfast at the round restaurant right next door to the hotel. We had been given vouchers and told breakfast was included with the price of the hotel. But upon handing the woman at the door our voucher, she made a big fuss, explaining poorly that the voucher was only for one person. But we had a double room for two people, why would we be given a voucher for only one breakfast? After much back and forth and gesturing, I finally understood that I had to go back to the hotel and pay for another breakfast, which was actually a lot more than I was willing to pay. Someone finally came and looked up in a book that there were two people staying in our room, and we were allowed to enjoy what was a very good breakfast buffet. However, the following three mornings, we had exactly the same hassle. So annoying! Thankfully, we never had to end up paying extra, but I had come very close.

Our first day in Qingdao was devoted to the beer festival. It was very far away from our hotel, but we managed to get there on a bus, which even included a transfer. We had a bit of trouble finding the festival after getting off the bus. There was a bit of an argument about whether or not we got off the bus too early, and some pondering whether the festival even existed, or maybe we were mistaken and it wasn't opening until the following day. We finally spotted a bunch of people gathered at what appeared to be the old beer festival location. As we got closer, we saw everyone was wearing the same t-shirts, which were being handed out, and I guess they were all festival workers or volunteers. Or maybe they were part of a large group tour. In any case, it wasn't the festival itself and we were very confused. We walked away from that site, and eventually found one of the beer festival entrances.

Feeling quite exhausted from all the walking in the heat, we stopped at the first beer tent we came upon. It wasn't very busy yet, and there were a bunch of servers waiting around with menus, anxious to bring us beer. But the menus were all in chinese. You'd think an "international" beer festival might consider having at least a little bit of english signage. But no. The eager servers kept coming up to us, pointing at their chinese menus, as if completely oblivious that we couldn't read them. I suppose they must be getting pretty used to white people knowing at least a little bit of mandarin what with the increasing number of expats. I just pointed to something randomly on the menu, as I figured it was all beer, and I didn't care which type of beer I got at that point - I was just really thirsty. And what do they bring me but my most detested beer of all - Pabst Blue Ribbon. Well, I wasn't doing any more random ordering from servers after that. Instead, it was straight to the counters where I could point to the tap I wanted.

After walking around a bit, we eventually settled in for a while at the Hoegaarden tent. Although the beers were pretty large, they were more expensive that I had expected at 60¥ each (approx. $10 CAN). Beer is significantly cheaper at any restaurant or bar. The entertainment at the Hoegaarden tent was sort of like a beauty contest. Not all the women participating looked very happy to be there. The young girl across the table from us, with her father, her father's friend, and her younger brother, especially did not seem impressed. While her dad was giving her younger brother tastes of his beer (the kid was probably about 5), the girl was never offered anything to drink. She seemed very demoralized, sitting there watching her father feed her kid brother beer while women on stage degraded themselves. It was sort of sad.

There were a lot more children at the beer festival than I had expected, in part because there was also a carnival with lots of kids stuff, including some really cool inflatable floating toys. Before anyone freaks out about parents giving their kids beer, remember that Chinese beer has a much lower alcohol percentage than what we're used to in North America. This is probably because many Asian people tend to get drunk more easily and/or cannot metabolize alcohol as quickly, which apparently has something to do with some genetic enzyme. You can read more about this phenomenon at this website, or just google it. I swear it's a real thing.

As the festival got to be significantly more crowded, ordering beer became much more of a challenge. Suddenly, they started trying to charge us an extra 50¥ for the beer glass. We walked away from a few tents that tried to do this, but soon realized all the tents were now charging. After arguing with a server that I didn't want to buy the glass, I just wanted to buy the beer, and after them struggling to explain to me I had no choice, I think I understood that I would be reimbursed the 50¥ once we returned the glass (assuming we didn't break it or walk off with it, which I guess had become a problem.) After all the misunderstanding and hassle that when into getting to this point, I was pretty sure I'd never be able to explain that I wanted my 50¥ back after I finished my beer, so we refused to fall for this little trick. We went to a different part of the festival, where you had to first purchase a voucher, and then get it exchanged for a pitcher of beer. Getting the voucher was no problem, but exchanging it for beer turned into a mini nightmare. We were crowded in front of a kiosk with many sweaty others, all of us thrusting our vouchers at the many staff behind the counter. Eventually, a woman took our voucher, but she didn't immediately give us beer! She took a bunch of other peoples' vouchers, and only occassionaly would someone be handed a pitcher. We could not figure this system out, and after waiting as patiently as we could while others argued trying to get beer in a timely fashion, we started to doubt the woman would even remember she had taken our voucher what felt like 5 minutes ago. People were pushing behind us, and it started to get unbearable. We could see they kept pouring pitchers, but then putting them under the counter instead of handing them out! Finally, my dear, tall partner went on his tip toes and stretched his arm down and retrieved a pitcher of beer for us. We got out of there hell-a-fast while a few men noticed and laughed. What a fiasco.

The other disappointment about the beer festival was I had read that white people don't have to buy their own beer, because friendly locals will give them free beer. That did not happen to us, unfortunately. We did have some friendly people come and ask to get their photo taken with us, but after the photo was taken, they didn't seem keen on hanging out with us, let alone buying us a beer. Too bad. While we had noticed that chinese people really love to take photos of white people, I was a bit disturbed by how many photos many people were taking of the black folks serving Ethiopian food. I was super excited to see Ethiopian food being sold, because it's one of my favourite cuisines. We seemed to be the only ones interested in buying the food, everyone else was crowding around taking photos. One woman had a huge zoom lens and was getting way too close to the woman cooking our food. It's hard for me to understand the excitement of a person who has maybe never seen a black person in real life because I live in Toronto, a city I've heard is one of the most multi-cultural in the world. So I suppose I shouldn't judge. But it does seem rather disrespectful to take photos of a person without asking permission. I didn't really care when people took photos of me, but on our last day in Asia, we were on a beach in Hong Kong, and my spouse nearly lost it because so many people from a tour bus kept taking pictures of him, and he was starting to get sick of it.

While the beer festival was fun, and it was great to have done something that had been on my wish list for a while, I would say that besides the mascots and some of the food options there is really nothing "international" about Qingdao's beer festival. If you ever go, make sure the subway system is built, and go with someone who can speak a little bit of the language.



Moving on, Qingdao has a lot more to offer than just beer. We quickly decided spending one day at the festival was more than sufficient. On Sunday, August 11, we did a lot of walking. Unfortunately, it was a really hazy day and the visibility was horrible - not the greatest weather for walking along the waterfront. But waterfront walk we did, along the Seaside Sightseeing Pathway starting from roughly the Olympic Sailing Centre, eventually making our way all the way to Zhanqiao Pier - with lots of stops in between. Highlights include May 4 (Wusi) Square, Music Square , #1 and #3 bathing beaches and Huashi Lou, a granite castle built in 1903 in the Badaguan (Eight Passes) neighbourhood. Luckily by the time we got up to the lookout at Huashi, the fog (or smog?) had cleared out a bit. Badaguan is a beautiful area east of old town near #2 bathing beach, filled with mansions, villas, and a large canopy of fruit trees. Walking along those leafy, aromatic streets was a bit of a respite from the intense heat.

When we approached #3 beach, I was drenched in so much sweat I just had to go swimming. There were a lot of professional photographers there people had paid to take their pictures. Some of them were wedding or engagement photos, but not all. I wondered if some of the women might actually be models, or if they were paying the photographers so they could pretend they were models. Or maybe they just really wanted some good photos for dating websites or to send to family. It was a nice spot to swim because it was not nearly as crowded as the next beach we swam at, #1 bathing beach. Holy smokes. I don't think I've been to a beach that crowded since Rio. But it wasn't nearly as nice as Rio. You felt a little gross swimming in this water, and not just because of the copious amounts people - especially children who were surely relieving themselves in it. My Hong Kong roommate from Shanghai had warned me not to go swimming in Qingdao, but I figured since so many other people were, how bad could it be? But I'd say the beaches in Hong Kong are much nicer.

Not long after visiting Huashi Lou, we found a restaurant to eat at. They only had a chinese menu, and no pictures. The server knew a little english luckily. He said "you like fish?" and made the motion of a swimming fish. He motioned me to follow him to go pick out a fish from the aquarium. I picked one that looked like a good size - not too big, asked for some beer and hoped they would prepare the fish in a way that was tasty. They sure didn't disappoint. We had a bit of trouble asking for rice, but they eventually guessed correctly what we wanted, and we enjoyed our freshly grilled fish with red spicy sauce (see photo.) So good.

Once we made it to Zhanqiao Pier, which is featured on the Tsingtao beer label, we were pretty exhausted so we hopped on a bus back to our hotel and relaxed a bit over tea tasting before venturing out for dinner along Yunxiao Lu. We ate at a great place where you got to walk around a display table pointing to all the things you wanted the waiter to bring you. We chose more seafood of course. And later we did some KTV karaoke! I wasn't sure karaoke would be very fun just the two of us, but it was awesome. They have a liqour store right on site, you walk in there with a basket and pick out what you want to bring to your karaoke room with you.

On Monday, August 12 we went to Zhanshan Temple and Monastery. I was pleased to have stumbled upon the Qingdao Revolutionary Martyrs Memorial Hall along the way. We didn't actually go inside, it didn't really seem open to visitors when we were there. But there's a nice monument we took some photos of. The monastery grounds were quite large, so we walked around there for a bit before moving on to Taiping Shan Park nearby. We were looking for the cable cars to take us up the hill to the TV Tower, but were unsuccessful. So we walked up the hill instead. Luckily we had a nice clear day for enjoying the views at the top of the TV Tower. On the way down, we were told to draw a piece of paper from a wooden box, and then were congratulated for winning a prize. We were led to a room full of a bunch of Chinese scroll paintings. There were two prices on each one - a very high price and very low price. Our "prize" was that we only had to pay the low price. We would not have bought one at all otherwise, so it seemed a bit like a trick. And we weren't especially keen on having to carry the thing around for the remainder of our travels. But the woman demonstrated how she would roll it up for us and put it in a nice box, tied with string so we could carry it around our shoulder. The box was long, but skinny, and we saw a piece that we quite liked. I took out my phone and did the currency conversion to figure out it only cost $20 CAN. So we bought it, and now it hangs nicely in our apartment - beautiful red blossoms on a tree covered in snow, with the moonlight in the background. We were given the certificate of authenticity but I highly doubt it's authentic. I just think it's pretty.

Next mandatory stop for us in Qingdao was the World of Tsingtao Beer Museum located on Qingdao Beer Street! It gives a nice history of the brewery, you get to see workers in the factory, and at the end you get a glass of beer. Again, I was a little surprised at how many children were there, and yes - the children got a glass of beer at the end too.

We finished our day at Jimo Lu Market, where I found a new hat. Then we bused it back to our hotel, again remarkably without incident. I'm always wary of riding buses in unfamiliar cities, because you never quite know what route it will take or if you might get lost and end up on the other side of town than you wanted to be. But our chinese map with the numbered bus routes didn't fail us.

We had one last incredible seafood dinner in Qingdao that night, this time at a restaurant around the corner from our hotel with the same name, Laozhuancun. We ordered by pointed to some pictures that looked good. I include here a picture of the dish. Looks good doesn't it? Well, it was incredibly good, spiced so deliciously that I didn't even realize until very near the end that I was eating fish heads. Sure, I was sucking some slimy stuff out of very boney fish parts, and my spouse wondered what part of the fish would be so boney. The slimy stuff sort of reminded me of the time my step-mom had me try bone marrow. Now that was tasty. And these fish heads were too. But near the end, when I started to get full and slow down a bit, I saw one of the eyeballs - perfectly formed and not all squished up like I suppose the ones I had just eaten must have been. Maybe it was because I was already pretty full, or maybe I was just creeped out a bit by seeing an eyeball on my plate, but I didn't eat much more after that. Both our stomachs felt a little weird that night. No regrets though, it was a great meal.

The next morning I knew we should leave ourselves lots of time to get to the train station for our 11:37am departure to Beijing. 9:30 we check out and ask the concierge to call us a taxi. Oh no, he says, it will be very difficult to get you a taxi, there are no taxis because of the beer festival. At 9:30am on a Tuesday? I couldn't believe it. He went out to see if he could hail one down, and 10 minutes later came back and said it was impossible. Fine, we had had such great experiences taking the bus, we confirmed which bus we had to get on to get to the train station and off we went. It's times like this I am so glad we pack super light. I tried hailing a cab as we waited for the bus, and the hotel staff were apparently right, it really didn't seem possible. Although the traffic seemed pretty heavy at times, the bus served us well - we made it to the station in plenty of time. As great as the Qingdao bus system is, it sure will be great once they have that subway built.

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Photos

Nie Er Statue
Composer of the PDC National Anthem