Qingdao Tsingtao

Pictures haven't been working lately, so I'm going to take a break from them and just write. I spent the weekend with four friends in Qingdao, a city on the Pacific Ocean, about 6 hours by a fast train and 10 hours or so by bus from Beijing. It is famous for producing Tsingtao Beer and for its history as a German port city (yes, the two are related). Tsingtao is an old romanization of the city's name, like Peking instead of Beijing I really wish I could send you pictures.

We went to Qingdao for a few reasons--it's not far, it's pretty, and they were having an international beer festival. Aside from some trouble getting tickets on the way back (we eventually did), the weekend was pretty great. First of all, it has always been my dream to travel by train (a fairly simple one, and now realized!). It was just as I had hoped it would be--cheap, a good view, and very comfortable. We stayed in a youth hostel that was located in an old observatory (hint hint Jake and Billy--the future?), with a restaurant/bar on the roof patio, and very nice conditions. We met a Slovenian guy and his Korean girlfriend on the roof. The guy had been a Chinese major in college and now works in business in Beijing--he was very "cool" in a cool kids kind of way and gave us the downlow on how to get work in Beijing. I think it would be a pretty sweet job to own and operate a youth hostel. There were people there from all over the world as well as Chinese people. Imagine the conversations you would get to have every day.

Speaking of conversations, my Chinese is getting better to the point that I'm not afraid to talk to people anymore, which is really important when traveling in a new city. Also, even though the staff at the hostel could speak English, once we used Chinese to speak to them they used Chinese to speak to us. They assumed we knew what they were saying, and for the most part we did!

While exploring Qingdao I had my first experience with bargaining (I am not so great at it), ate fried scorpions (two because the first one was pretty tasty and my friend bought a bag of 15), ate lots of fresh seafood, went to a great park with a hill where you could see all of the German, traditional Chinese, and modern architecture, and of course, the beer festival. At the beer festival a group of Chinese people cleared a table for us, and proceeded to give us free beer, chicken necks, regular chicken kebabs, and bread, and we all took pictures and hooted and hollered and had a good time. The most common things shouted were "China Welcomes You, Qingdao Welcomes You, and Best Friends, Best Friends."

The beaches were nice, peaceful, the water was warm, lots of wedding pictures were being taken, and my favorite thing was a 3km walking path along the beaches that had willow trees and occasional snack stands.

We came back on an overnight bus and arrived at Beijing around 5 Monday morning. Now, Tuesday evening, we are heading out at 7:30 on an overnight bus to Xi'an. That means, next week I'll have stories about the world famous terracotta warriors and more, because Xi'an has a long long important history. One of my teachers has a friend who is a history teacher there, and I think she invited me to go with her when they meet up. I hope so!