Stuck in Qingdao: Not the End of the World

Stuck
The third and final leg of my trip was supposed to take place in Xi'An, but unfortunately the popularity of the beer festival made train tickets either sold out or out of my price range. Furthermore, hostel/hotel prices were getting more expensive by the day as people tried to get into town for the final week of the fest. So I was forced to spend one last day there before returning to Shanghai. There have been worse fates.

Sight Seeing
I woke up and moved my stuff over to a new hostel, related to the other hostel but 25¥ more and closer to the pier. While the day was still starting up, I decided to hit the docks.

There's some nifty architecture in Qingdao

The May 4th Revolution Memorial

Up close and personal

Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center 

A Large Pole

Olympics!

The Qingdao Skyline (find the May 4th Memorial)

The May 4th Revolution Memorial commemorates when students rallied in Beijing to protest the Treaty of Versailles, which granted the territory of Shandong (where Qingdao is) formerly owned by the Germans to the Japanese instead of the Chinese. While China refused to sign the treaty and Japan retained possession of Shandong through the end of WWII, this was seen as a symbolic protest for China. All classes from students to merchants to peasants collaborated for the good of the nation, instead of just getting an imperial order from the Emperor. It is seen as one of the first events that led to Communism in China. End of history lesson. [I for one had no idea that China and Japan were a part of the Treaty of Versailles, so hopefully I taught you all something new today]

Qingdao also won the bid to host the sailing competition at the Beijing 2008 Olympics. There's another history lesson for you, albeit shorter and less interesting.

Meeting Up With Friends
After walking around the harbor for a couple hours, I was bored of walking around on my own. So I hitched a ride back to my original hostel to meet up with a few of the kids there - a tiny Shandong girl named 盛积芳(Sheng Ji Fang) and the twins 贝贝(Bei Bei) and 鹏鹏(Peng Peng). Turned out to be a good time to get inside, since the rain came in as soon as I got there. We ate lunch then hit the arcade.

Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos of the arcade, which was decked out with a working version of just about every type of game (rare in my experience here so far). We drove cars, motorcycles, hummers (that game was awesome), snowboards, played drums and ticket games, watched a ridiculous DDR-off, and almost took home a giant panda. When we finally got out, the rain had mostly passed.

We regrouped at the hostel and picked up the twins older step-sister and headed out to a local restaurant for dinner. We ate lots of Qingdao specialties, which are similar to other Chinese dishes except with seafood. And there were plenty of 干杯(gan bei, literally "dry cup", loosely "bottoms up"). And finally I was serenaded by the twins with the version of 张震岳's 再见. I have a video that is far too large to upload, but it went something like this

except way better. Here is the picture summary.

Peng Peng and Me

Bei Bei and Kan Kan

Sheng Ji Fang (aka Mei Mei), Peng Peng, Me, and Bei Bei

Lots of fun all night (a group of Koreans and Americans came in and we sang and danced til it was past my bedtime). The next morning I came back and had a typical Qingdao breakfast of porridge, bread, and ji dan bing (different from its Shanghai cousin for sure), bought some cake to eat on the train (the cake shop down the street was top notch) and shot back to Shanghai.

Many new friends, tons of fun, and lots of memories. I could definitely see myself enjoying a life in Qingdao more than Shanghai if the right situation came along. The air is cleaner, hills like San Fran, cobblestone roads like Boston, a port city where I could go sailing, and, of course, the beer street; this place would be easy to love. Plus the primary language is a silly form of Mandarin (w's are v's thanks to Germany) instead of a completely different language of Shanghainese. Oh well, I'll have to wait until my contract in Shanghai is up before I can try to live elsewhere, so I'll enjoy it there first.

Next Time

Back in Shanghai!

Stephen "Scuba" Lauer