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Published: October 7th 2006
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Beer Street
Here are some beer bottle sculptures outside the Tsing Tao Brewery. Advice from Richard's crazy student Joey (girl) about going to Qingdao: "Don't accept drinks people give to you. They might put something in to make you sleep, and then steal your computer."
We got to the bus station early, and thank God! I had brought Ling to help me buy the tickets a few days earlier, and she thought we were going to BEIJING. oooops. We ran around like chickens and got the problem solved surprisingly fast. It only took about ten minutes. It was so weird, considering how packed the station was. There were lines out onto the street.
So, the bus took about four hours. The Qingdao station was a MAD HOUSE. Everyone gets off and the only way out is through this itty bitty doorway that goes out into a packed tent market. How logical. of course. Bottleneck everyone who arrives through a three foot door opening into a MARKET. It took us forty minutes to get from the bus to a cab.
WHen we arrived at the hotel, I'm not gonna lie, I was grumpilicious, so I conked out for a few hours. Later that evening our Skidmore friends teaching in Qufu arrived with their collegue Clayton.
Seafood Lunch
Ada, Tiger, and the rest of us at lunch. Real nice guy. And so we were complete. Me, Greg, Richard, Amanda, Jeff, Clayton. That night we walked along beer street, A.K.A. the street on which the Tsing Tao Brewery is located. Very flashy and dashy. (I seriously like that word: dashy. I'll give 100 kuai to anyone who can quote that word from specific movie who isn't named Kait Sanders.) Later on we went to a very popular disco called Feeling, and I encountered ANOTHER bouncy floor. There was a group of young western kids, (fifteen? sixteen?) I think they were German, but they pretty much ignored us. So FINE! we ignored them too. Getting a drink at this place was a serious ordeal. You have to order, then pay, then get your receipt stamped, then they bring the receipt to the other side of the bar where they make the drink. By the time your drink is actually made, they can't remember who it is for. THere was assigned seating too. I mean, this place was a CLUB. Seats at the bar, and little round tables scattered around. BUt if you sat ANYWHERE other than the place where a hostess put you, a security guard literally came over
and shooed you away. Otherwise, typical Chinese club. A lot like the one in Dongying, but with a bouncy floor.
Sunday I met Ada, who is a friend of Yali and lives in Qingdao. (Yali was my Chinese tutor at home.) She and her husband Tiger took as all out to lunch at a really great seafood place downtown. They were so sweet! They gave me a bunch of mooncakes, which at first I was not too psyched about, because the ones the University gave us were TERRIBLE. yuck. I figured I just didn't like mooncakes until I tried Ada's! THey were more fruity. This coming friday (OCtober 6th) is the Moon Festival, also called the Mid-Autumn festival. People have been celebrating it in China for thousands of years. Basically, on the full moon of the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, people get together to celebrate the summertime harvest and hangout. The festival revolves around a story about a woman named Chang E who lives on the moon. Basically Chang E used to be immortal, then was made immortal by some emperor because her kids were bad, or something, but then she finds a pill of immortality
but overdoses (she took a whole pill instead of half) and floated up to the moon and has been stuck there forever. So anyway, on the moon festival, people exchange mooncakes. They’re these thick round cakes with different fillings. Most are about the size and shape of a hockey puck. Some are smaller. The fillings are usually sweet red or green bean or other pastes. Some have nuts. A popular one has a goose egg in it, but I thought it was gross. I read that during the Yuan Dynasty moon cakes were used to send secret messages by imprinting the words on the top of the cakes, and then once the person got the message they would eat the mooncake to destroy the evidence. Neato.
After lunch Ada and Tiger put us on a bus to one of the beaches. It wasn't terribly exciting. There were lots of people there, most of them out on the rocks looking for............money? crabs? Sally Jessie Raphael? After the beach I went off alone looking for this arts and crafts store I had read about. It took me about an hour to find, and it blew, but the walk was great. I wandered
rocks
All these people are digging around for crabs and crayfish. Or maybe bugs and spiders. To each his own! into some really beautiful neighborhoods. I came up behind two women who were carrying beer bags and snapped a shot. All over the city there are vendors with kegs of Tsing Tao Beer who sell it to you in plastic bags. Apparently it's really cheap and really good, but I don't understand how you're supposed to put itt Down. Also saw an ADORABLE Golden retreiver that made me miss Jessie a lot (and that made me miss Tucker, of course. But not a moment goes by when I don't miss Tucker. OH Tucker!) and stop and think "wow. there are golden retrievers in China." I mean, I didn't really picture goldens here. Did you? Anyone? Hot topic. Discuss.
After a while I got seriously lost, but didn't really care because I had about three hours to kill. Eventually I bumped into two Spanish dudes, Juan and Ernest, who were kind enough to walk with me back to my hotel, wherever that was. It took us about an hour. They were really great. They've been here for about two years working for a French glass making company. Damn, I never got a picture of them. Ernest spent most of the time
Best dog in China
This dog was hanging out with two women and a little girl who were walkingg down the street. He kept the purse in his mouth the whole way! on his mobile talking business, something went down with half a centimeter of glass. dum dum dum. But Juan was great company. We talked a lot about why China is the way it is. And we figured it out. If you would care to know yourself, feel free to call. For a reasonable fee I'll enlighten you. I take visa, mastercard, and cheese.
At 6 I met up with everyone and we went to a Xinjian restaurant near the hotel. It was yummy. Ah, weidao hao Ji le! Xinjian is a northwest province in China. The food has a strong middle eastern flavor. It can be a nice break from Chinese food, and their skewers are UNREAL. (Oh my god, there is this place by JJ's that does the BEST lamb meat sticks and mantou (bread), which they brush with oil and spices before they grill SO GOOD! Yeah, I want one right now.) Anyway, this Qingdao Xinjian place was tasty. The building was falling apart, though. We were brought upstairs to a private room (standard Chinese thing for bigger groups) and we see an open door. Oh? What's this? Where does this go? Oh, it goes NOWHERE. A clean
Feeling
I somehow managed a shot of Richard on the bouncy floor at club Feeling. drop outside from one story up. "nono, this way" say's the waitress. Ya think? After dinner it was back to beer street, but first a detour on a nighttime street market. There was all kinds of stuff there. A lot of tea sets. And hair ties and napkins. I made a very important purchase.
Beer street was short, I was sleepy. More to come.
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