Qingdao day 1

   Wasn't sure that I was actually going to have internet in my room at the youth hostel that I am staying at but it turns out this place has a lot of conveniences, including wi-fi. The location of this hostel has also turned out to be very cool. It is situated in an old observatory at the top of a big hill in the middle of the old part of Qingdao. The reason that I decided to stay at the hostel was to meet other foreigners to wonder around with. Since I didn't set a schedule for myself I could easily adopt to what others are doing. Getting here yesterday was actually a funny experience...I was able to catch a cab from the hotel by the airport but between the bellhop and the taxi driver, they could not figure out my destination so I had to call the hostel to have them give my driver directions. It seemed to work b/c he set off with me towards Qingdao. The airport is about 40K from the actual city of Qingdao so I just sat back a enjoyed the views, green and mountainous. We were driving for about 1 hour and seemed to be getting close when the driver pulled over on a small street and got out and approached some women. I finally figured out that he was asking them for directions b/c soon I had 2 older Chinese women getting in the cab with me. It seemed that he agreed to give them a ride to the area that I was going as long as they gave him directions. Now remember that I don't understand the Chinese language at all so I had to figure out what was going on only by what I was seeing. We drove for about 5 minutes before the driver pulled over and the ladies got out, then they motioned for me to get out but I could see that I was not at the hostel so I wasn't sure what was going on. Soon enough one of the ladies took me by the hand and I figured out that they were going to walk me the rest of the way to the hostel...but first, we had to stop the home of one of the women so she could drop off the bags that she was carrying, she also had to hang out some small amount of laundry to dry before we could take off. This woman actually lived on the same street as my final destination. Once figuring this out, i motioned that I understood where I needed to go and that she didn't have to walk me there (it was up a big hill) but she insisted and continued to walk me to the front door of the hostel which was maybe 1/2 mile up this hill. She was so nice and really just seemed like she wanted to make sure that I got there safely. It was a very comforting experience b/c even though she couldn't communicate with me at all she really wanted to help me out, this, I could tell, was the start of a good trip.

The hostel

My room, which I paid for both beds so that I could have the place to myself.

Also, sharing a picture of the bathroom for those that have not had the pleasure

of staying in a hostel. You never know what you will get, like this one room, bathroom/

shower combo. Yes, the toilet got soaked when using the shower. The room never 

really dried either. It was an odd set up.

  Once getting checked in and buying a map of the city from the front desk I went to drop my bags off in the room and get out and about as soon as possible. First on my list was getting to the Tsingtao Brewery. When first looking into my trip, it seemed that things were very close together in the city so I thought that I would be able to walk everywhere but this was not the case. ALL the maps were very deceiving and things were actually spread out. I knew that I would not want to ware myself out from just walking from destitnation to destination so I opted to figure out a bus to the brewery. It seemed that the #2 bus could be caught close to the hostel and drop me off near the brewery (and it only cost 1 rmb to ride, that's about $0.16). I wanted to take a tour of the facility but found out that's near impossible so I would have to settle for the Beer Museum instead.

I know it's a picture of the back of people heads...but really i just
want to show you that I was able to catch a bus in China!

 The city also makes it easy for your to know that you are heading the right way,

just walk towards Beer Street!

 Yes, the statue is made of beer bottles and yes, that bench is also the shape of a beer bottle.

Beer fountain, anyone!?

You also knew you were going the right way if you looked at the top of one of the taller buildings and was this:

  So this museum turned out to be like most other Chinese museums where they display many items and facts of non interest. There was enough stuff that was enjoyable though and the museum was housed in parts of the original brewery (it was cool to be in the old building). Also, it turns out that I am a celebrity at the beer museum, who would have known!! I was minding my own business when a women asked to take a picture with me, as odd as it was I said yes. She must have taken about 5 picture with me in front of all sorts of exhibits at the museum. 

I reciprocated the gesture and had her boyfriend take a picture on my camera too.

   But this wasn't the last of my celebrity-ness; when I got to the first tasting room, I had several old men approach me and ask to have pictures taken with me also which then turned into a huge crowd wanting to do the same thing. So funny! Chinese LOVE pictures with random white people. 

Another new friend. I think that I took pictures with about 30 random people

before actually getting out of the museum.

   I'm also learing that the Chinese love to use mannequins at museums to demostrate what people would be doing in whatever it was that they are trying depict. Do we do this in the States and i just don't recall? Remember the mannequin at the silk museum that I took my picture with? Well, here are a couple more equally as creepy ones:

Left, the history of Chinese ways of drinking beer. In the 70's beer was drank from cannng jars,

in the 80's it was drank from large bowls, in the 90's it was served and drank from plastic bags which

still happens today (I saw this in a market, it's for real!). Right, A super cheesy part of the tour where

you walk through this room that is at a huge angle (so you stumble) and people from your tour group

watch from TV's on the outside... you look drunk, it was kinda funny.

  Once leaving the museum I wanted to walk through the biggest park in Qingdao, Zhongshan Park. Remember that I meantioned that I purchased a city map, well it was at this point that I realized that I must have left it in my room at the hostel. So getting around was a little tricky, altough I still had 2 seperate guide books that had ok maps in them and the compass that Donald had given me. I walked for about 15 minutes then found what I thought would be the entrace to the park, paid my entrace fee then went on in. Soon i realized that I had actaully just paid to enter the zoo. Really I don't think that China is a country that I would rank high for zoo visiting and this was even what I thought before actually seeing one here. It was as sad as I expected. 

Yes, on the right was a caged Mastiff. None of the animals looked content or healthy. 

  I hurried my way through the zoo trying to get to the park. FInally found were I needed to go and hopped on the cable car to take to to different locations in the park. 

The view on the front side of the park.

The next stop on the cable car was the TV Tower. It was also the highest

point of the park. In the picture on the right, the view from the back side of the park. 

On the way down.

Buddhist temple that was at the bottom of the park.

After walking for a good bit, w/o a good map to get me there, I was able to finally see some Chinese beaches. I must have walked along the multiple beaches for miles! By this point it was late in the day and my feet were starting to kill me.

This was something unexpected, there must have been hundreds of couple
getting wedding pictures taken. Many in super cheesy dresses with even
cheesier props. Like balloons, pinwheels, life-saver, you name it and I saw it.
Here are a couple of girls being redressed for the next round of pictures.

Bikes for the water! They even had doubles and triples so you could
ride with friends! I think Donald would like these.

I finally decided to give up walking any longer along the beach path and caught a taxi to the Catholic church that I knew was near my hostel. 

St Michael's Catholic church, constructed in 1934.
Located at the top of a steep hill in the middle of
Old Qingdao.

 On my way to the hostel, I came across this food market.

Was getting to the hostel I made my way to the roof-top
bar for some free mussels and 20rmb free-flowing Tsingtao beer.

I even met a nice group of people. Clockwise from me, a girl from HK, and English
girl living in South Korea. a guy from Phoenix teaching English in Nanging (about
an hour outside of Shanghai), a guy from Sweden traveling for months and a women
and her son (not pictured) from Scotland. We were pretty diverse and had a good time.
I even made plans to travel to Lao Shan with 3 of them the next day.

View from the bar at the hostel

I did top the evening with a couple hours of dancing in a nightclub. Had a great time!

A special thanks to Christine Ye! I used the China guide book (Rough Guide to China) that you gave me so often this weekend, what a good tool. Thank you!