This was our motto for the second half of the trip. After spending many wonderful hours at the Temple of Heaven, Great Wall, Behei Gardens, and Tienanmen square, our intrepid band of travellers was ready for some rest once we hit the city of Qingdao.
Qingdao is definitely one of the coolest cities I have ever been to. Basically, one half of the city somewhat resembles a European city on the Mediterranean coast. Perhaps a seaside city in southern Spain. The architechture is actually Germanic from what I gather because of a prior occupation in the 1800's. The other half of the city just looks like a bright, clean Chinese city. The combination made for some wonderful town wandering and even some visits to some awesome westernized places. We caught a live classic rock cover band at the Lennon Bar (yes, as in John Lennon). Any time that you can catch the full solo in Free Bird while in China....you've found something special.
There are many beaches in Qingdao, but I don't think the Chinese quite understand what a beach is supposed to look like, or what they're supposed to do there. For the most part, these beaches were a smelly combination of jagged rock and tidepools. The chinese would walk around with long sleeved shirts and pants rolled up to look for crabs or other small creatures. I don't think they particularly enjoyed this, I think they just guessed that you are supposed to hang out at the beach, and hunting crabs seems to be the logical thing to do in a rocky/dirty area.
Thankfully, our crew made the long trek out to a beach that us Americans could feel comfortable at. With a long shoreline of sticky, but otherwise pretty sand, the beach we visited was a welcome reprieve from the chaos that is the Chinese lifestyle. We waded into the water, layed out on the sand, and read our books. It was well worth the 2 hours of travel time that it took to get there.
Those of you who know me very well know that I am not one for seafood. Having mentally prepared myself for the coastal city fare of fresh seafood, I felt like I would be OK. I was wrong. What, might you ask, is the favorite street food of the Qingdao resident??? Skewered Squid. Now I'm not talking about slices of squid meat...I'm talking about floppy tentacles and all, thrust onto a stick and barbequed over a coal pit. Thankfully, Qingdao has other forms of good barbeque skewers. The pork was especially tasty.
I am sad to say that I left Qingdao without taking one picture there. Having used all of my cheesy tourist powers on Beijing, I was quite sick of my camera by the latter half of the week. I will toss up some Great Wall pictures on the next post, but if you just can't wait, check out my facebook page for some cool photos.
I hope you are all doing well stateside! Classes are going well, and I am enjoying life in China. I would like to take this conclusion to give another shout out to the Alabama Football Team. Thank you for waiting until I leave the country to start kicking some tail! Keep posting those comments and let me know what you want me to blog about!
Peace
-Finn
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1 comment:
Finn,
Always good to hear from you. We are enjoying your posts and always want to hear more. I was sad to hear that you didn't take any pictures of Qingdao, a city that seemed to be so visually intriguing to you. But it sounds like you had a great time in Bejing, even if you did set US - Hungarian relations back several decades. The economy here is in a nosedive - send money as soon as you can! Love, Dad
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