Yep, he smells like a puppy

Qingdao; but, not the beer festival

After returning from my bicycle ride I decided on another course of activity. I decided to go to Qingdao. This is the same city that Debra shipped out of in route to North Korea. It is on the north East coast of China and has been the home of the Chinese Navy along with the location of the largest US Marine Corp contingent in China prior to WWII.

Qingdao was settled by the Germans and boasts a tremendous number of turn of the century German buildings. Because Qingdao was expanded in different directions, most of these buildings have been left standing. They continue to serve as homes, churches, office and administrative buildings.

I went and got the tickets at the expedited ticket window. I believe that I have mentioned it in the past. I wanted a ticket for a future date and HZQ and I were sent to this ticket office that she had never heard of (It took us the better part of an afternoon to find it, the first time, because she kept getting the wrong directions from people). It is located through an unmarked door, past the freight office, and then up another unmarked flight of stairs.

The first time I visited this office with a teacher from South Africa and Mr. Lou (the teacher from South Africa was trying to get tickets to Hong Kong and was being told that the only tickets were standing room only) I found that neither of them were aware of the existence of this office. As we were walking to ward it, Mr. Lou's question was why we wanted to send freight. They do a real good job of hiding this office.

One of the advantages of this office is that they have very few people in line and the staff will look instead of just saying, "Mayo." When I first arrived I was told that there were no tickets. Then, after taking care of the other customer in the lobby the ticket officer went back to checking other alternatives and found me both out and return tickets on the days I had asked for. It turned out that they were top bunk, but that was okay, I just slept and read for most of the trip.

When I went to the ticket office I went with Lily and it was all I could do to keep her from doing the typical Chinese thing of cutting in line. I realize that it is part of their culture. However, they agree that it is wrong and then go ahead and do it anyway. I have embarrassed a good number of them for calling them out for this, what they agree to be, rude behavior. As such, there is no way I could, in good conscious engage in it. Here was Lily, trying to elbow the person out of line when there was only one other person in line, "no, we will wait our turn!" I think that this was one of the reasons that the ticket agent was willing to continue researching my ticket even after I had been told that it was not available.

At the VIP waiting room I was, again, instructed to wait with a small group of Army officers that were getting on the same train. They were in the same car so we chatted a little; however, they were in a compartment on the other end. The advantage of walking out with them was that we went out to board first and this left me time to load my pack in the storage rack before the crowd was released.

Other than that, the trip was rather uneventful. I did not travel directly to Qingdao because the main Qingdao station is still under renovation for the 2008 Olympics; instead, I went to Cangkou. There was some confusion because Cangkou is clearly not set up for foreign travelers and is also not prepared to handle the amount of traffic that it is seeing now that the Qingdao station is closed.

When I arrived I took a three wheel cab to the hostel. The driver was not able to find the road that took me directly to the doors of the hostel and dropped me at the bottom of the long stairway.

I stayed at the Old Qingdao Observatory Youth Hostel, it was an attractive building. As far as negatives go, I had mostly small issues. First, the menu was more limited than I am used to. That would not have been a big deal except for the next issue, which was that; although, the hostel was on the top of a hill in the middle of the old city, as the name, Old Observatory would imply. It is located on the top of a hill, in this old section of town the streets wind a lot. The result was that it was easy to get misdirected and spend more time returning to the hostel than had been planned.

The first room I checked into was the budget room; very simply, it was a little too budget for my tastes. A single level of upgrade got me a place that I was a lot happier with. It had a western toilet and separate shower areas. There were also less people in the rooms, the rooms were nicer in general, and I could access wi-fi from my bunk.

The building was interesting and, as the name would imply, an old observatory. There were several observatories originally placed on this hill by the Germans. The observatory is now the center of a large park. As a result, there are many Chinese milling about playing cards and chess, along with morning exercises.

That evening I went for a walk and ended up at a typical Chinese street café. After I finished my dinner I sat with some other Chinese and the shopkeeper immediately brought me another plate so that I would be able to eat and drink with them for a little while. I was able to speak to them a little as we ate what amounted to light, after dinner, nibbles of noodles and drank. I then returned to my hostel for the night.

The next day I set off to find a place that sold plastic scale models. They are not popular in China and I, previously, had only seen them only sold in a single shop in Kunming. However, Debra reported to me that, whilst she was in Qingdao, she had seen a person walking in the street with a kit box. This led to the belief that, somewhere, these kits were sold in Qingdao.

I had also been told that saltwater pearl necklaces could be gotten for a low price in this city. So, before I left the hostel I asked where I would be able to find the pearls. I was given a street name to check and a map. Of course, the map was entirely in Chinese so the people at the hotel were pretty sure that it would do me no good at all. As it turned out, it was quite useful throughout my stay in Qingdao.

I walked, through several street bazaars, to the indicated street and did not find the necklaces, or anything else that looked like what I was interested in. At that point I decided to, simply, continue on. Often, my choice in what direction to walk seems to be based more on the guidance of a Ouija board than on any real plan. In my random wanderings I did happen into several camera shops and managed, but not on the first try, to locate a UV filter for my Fuji camera in fifty-five millimeter (yes, I was able to say what size I needed; however, I was left pointing to the general product area for the item) and a lens cap. I have been into several camera shops looking for these items and had, until this point, been unable to locate what I needed.

Having my confidence Bolstered by finding the camera accessories, something I had looked for, with Debra, in several cities, I continued on, looking for something for Zeneta. While walking I saw a very pretty Victorian style dress. I saw a couple of small things that it needed, such a cover over the zipper, with ties; but, beyond that, it was very pretty. I went in and asked about the price. I was told 360Y. At that point I called Zeneta and asked her size.

It turned out that there was no way that it could have been altered to fit Zeneta. It was a good idea; however, I would have to keep looking for something to bring back to Zeneta.

My walk took me to a small park. From there I turned toward to beaches. I stopped by an English bookstore and purchased Zeneta a copy of the latest Harry Potter book. The Harry Potter books here are the ones written in UK. There is a slight difference, at least I have been told that there is, between the US and UK versions. According to Debra, some of the humor falls a bit flat in the US versions.

I was a bit more satisfied as at this point; I at least had something to give to Zeneta upon my return. I continued to the beaches, which were quite crowded and nothing like the beaches I had visited in Vietnam. From there I strolled and eventually, at the Naval museum, turned back toward the hostel.

The next day was much of the same; I got interested and did start tracking the amount I was walking. I determined that over my vacation I walked (not counting breaks and the like) for, on average, slightly more than four hours a day.

I went and purchased some DVDs and visited a dive shop. It was curious to note that there were no PADI requirements on dive equipment. Very simply, if you know enough to know what you are buying, then they assume that you know how to use it. Like I commented to one person, I would be very leery of buying air in China, there just isn't enough attention given to maintenance. I also saw no places that tested tanks.

Eventually I returned to the hostel and it was then that I met a number of students from Perdue University that were doing their Hospitality Management internship in a hotel in Nanning. They were on vacation and I spent the evening with them. It was at this point that I arranged to meet them the next morning to go and visit a Chinese gentleman's home. He wanted to take some pictures of them.

We had planned to meet at 8:45 the next morning but they were no where to be found. In all honesty, I expected that they had decided to give me the slip when I did not see them by 9:30a.m.; about that point Leslie came wandering out and told me that no one had managed to get up on time. Some time later we assembled and headed for Philip's home.

When we got there, he ushered us from his yard and into his home. There we had tea and fruit while he made arrangements for us to meet him, and his friends, in the early afternoon. We then returned to his yard and took some photos and began walking to the beach.

We had agreed to meet him at beach number three. This left us with a long walk past the many other beaches and features along the seaside walkway. While walking I did happen to see a store that sold plastic scale models. I did not get them then but I did note the location of the shop for later. I simply did not want to be packing a number of boxes with me for the remainder of the day.

We stopped at other beaches along the way and enjoyed the water and the sand. We even lost part of our cadre at one of the beaches, as they were finished with walking.

When we finally arrived at beach number three I was the last remaining male member of our small group. I did strike up a conversation (at the request of one of the ladies with me) with a young man from Mississippi and invited him to sit with us for a while as we sat on the sand and swam in the water. After he departed, we prepared to leave and discovered that Philip and his friends had been there, nearby, waiting for us to come join them, which we did.

A number of photos were taken and one of the girls played a form of beach Volleyball while others of us sat in the shade and drank tea. The comment was often made, as we sat and looked at the skyline across the bay, that this, Qingdao, was China's San Francisco. As I have said, I was impressed that it was a clean, modern, city that had managed to modernize without destroying the beauty of its past.

From there we were given a ride back to our hostel. We still had not made it to the world famous Qingdao beer festival.

That evening was spent laughing about the sunburns we had gotten that day. We also met more foreigners at the hostel, and just, in general, spent the evening being loud. I got to know one of the people in my room, a student from Finland and on his way to an exchange semester in South Korea. I also met a German couple that were traveling through China, and another couple who where teaching in Anhui Province, where I had just ridden to.

The next morning I walked and took a bus to the location of the Qingdao beer festival. However, when I got there it was closed. The very idea of a "festival" being closed for lunch (remembering that lunch is from about 11:30-3:00) was a very Chinese thing. I then went and walked along the boardwalk, purchased lunch and some strands of pearls. As I noted, I had been looking for pearls like these earlier. I then returned to the general vicinity of the beer festival building and rested a while. I fully intended to enter when it reopened at three in the afternoon.

However, I got a phone call telling me that I was invited to a "last night in Qingdao" dinner for the American interns with Philip and his friends. I immediately changed my plans and got on a bus that took me back to the German quarter. I met about three of the interns at a street café and we were shortly joined by the others.

From there we went to a restaurant where we had a lot of interesting "food on a stick." A lot of the food in China is eaten on sticks. We had a dinner that consisted of, among other things, squid, both the head and the tentacles, on sticks. Small fish that were to be eaten whole were also served, along with normal fare such as chicken necks. And, probably the strangest food of the evening, silkworms, were served near the end. We all tried them; however, the first person to try one did not know that he was supposed to spit out the shell, which elicited laughs from the Chinese at the table.

In all, it was a great dinner and definitely one of the high points of the trip. From there we went to the bus station so that the students could begin their trip, returning to Nanning. I was given a ride back to my hostel; however, the driver dropped me off at the wrong place. I tried to get some directions from the desk clerk; however he simply had no idea where my hostel was, and, of course, I had forgotten my map. I was rescued by a tall, and attractive, British woman who remarked that they could just not let a westerner wander around the city lost. It turned out that she knew where I was going and was able to give clear directions to a cab driver.

The next morning I walked and got some small gifts for the Chinese students that had helped me, in various ways, over my summer vacation and made a second try for the shop that sold models. The first time I went by the shop was closed and the shopkeeper next door was sure that they would be open by nine; however, when I returned they were open. I got my models, after a small bit of dickering about the price and returned to begin packing.

After having a pizza on the patio of the hostel I got into my cab and began the return trip to the train station. Instead of a three wheeler, I was in a standard auto-taxi for this trip.

On my way back to the Cangkou station I was riding along and looking at the city. We pulled off the controlled access road and onto a surface street. As I looked at the street I noticed that it was clean. There were modern looking apartment buildings that did not appear to be post-apocalyptic, or industrial-hell, movie props on one side and a small strip mall on the other; it really could have been anywhere in the world.