I think.. BEER! MANY MANY BEERS!
Qingdao is basically a port and therefore near the coast. So naturally, there are beaches, sand, sea breeze and loads of sun!
It used to be a German port in the early 1900s and therefore the structure and layout of the city is heavily influenced by the German model.
I was getting quite sick of climbing mountains, seeing temples and traditional Chinese architecture and this was a welcome relief.
Now, the aim of this short weekend trip is to slack and "nua", get a good rest and have an enjoyable break.
Although I did plan quite a number of attractions but We didn't get to go as many of them. BUT, it was really fine with me cause it wasn't important.
Day 1:
We took the train at 6.45am (we were almost late, scrambling for our stuff cause we overslept) and arrived in Qingdao at 12.34pm.
HELLO QINGDAO!!!!!!!
As the seabreeze hits your face, it carries away with it your worries and uncertainties. It made me feel.. relaxed somehow.
That was a good sign cause I was going to "nua" my 4 days away.
We headed for our hostel, Kaiyue International Youth Hostel, and dropped our bags before heading out for lunch. Seafood seafood!
There's really cheap seafood around but there are also the expensive ones.
Tsingtao Beer museum (along Beer street, how cool does that sound?) was the next destination and I was having loads of fun in the "Drunken Room" where one gets the drunk feeling in this specially constructed room. Basically, it just throws ur senses and gravitational sense off balance so you can't really walk properly. HAHA. That room was super duper fun but too bad, there were simply too many people around to do anything crazy.
The visit there was concluded with a jug (1.25litres) of Tsingtao beer for the 3 of us. Crazy man! How to finish?? We didn't lar. Or at least I tried by drinking alot.
We headed for seafood dinner after the visit. Man, I miss seafood.
We had loads of shell, way too many. Shengyuan ordered abalone. 1 for 28rmb. Cheap Cheap Cheap Cheap.
Abalone :)
After dinner, we walked down further to a night market near Carrefour. I forgot what's that night market called. Now, Qingdao has about.. 3-4 night markets at different areas and they sell a variety of stuff. The best market will be at Taidong Pedestrian Street where its HUGE (we went there on our 2nd night)
Walking around aimlessly, time passed really quickly.
Day 2:
Walk walk walk walk walk walk walk walk walk walk.
We took the seaside walk. Estimated to be about... 10km? haha.
From 10am till... 7pm? Before we eventually gave up when we tried looking for our German Restaurant. (more on that later)
We went.. Zhan Qiao, Lu Xun Park, Bathing Beach 6, 1, 2, 3, Ba Da Guan, Hua Shi Lou, Musical Square, Wu Shi Guang Chang.
I actually got sun burnt while walking through out the day. Interesting huh? I guess that goes to show how much we actually walked.
The bathing beaches are overly crowded and they have a wide range of activities and there are people working out at the outdoor gym in swimming trunks. Weird.
At Zhan Qiao, there were so many people selling sea shells and starfish which was fished out from the sea. Just walk about 20 steps and you will see a crowd at different points buying the shells.
At Ba Da Guan, there are like hundreds of couples doing their photoshoot. The ladies are decently dressed but the guys.. terrible dress sense. A number of them were in suits and most of them had ugly shirts to match. What happened to dressing up for the occasion?
Hua Shi Lou
As there was still time, we went over to the highly recommended Taidong Bu Xing Jie night market. This market is the largest amongst all the night markets here in Qingdao and they sell everything; bedsheets, clothes, shoes, towels, slippers, bags... etc etc etc. We eventually bought a huge towel in preparation for our beach trip the next day. Nice.
Day 3:
As the bathing beaches on Qingdao main island suck. Golden sand beach was our destination to slack and suntan. Golden sand beach is location on Huang Dao and we had to take a ferry there. However, when buying tickets, please queue up for the Xue Jia Dao ferry instead. Express ride (20mins) is available when the weather is good. Unfortunately for us, we had to take the slow 45 mins ride there and back.
In our short time at the beach, we observed that many guys have matching swimming trunks. Its like a form of identity. Lol. The locals seem to like making themselves wet before burying themselves in sand, as if the sand has some minerals to do sand-bathing. In addition, many kids roam around the beach naked. I wonder why their parents seem to like them to go commando. Weird.
The sand there was definitely fine. So much better than the normal ones. We basically lied down on our nice towel and sunbathed. Nua-ed! Shiok. Falling asleep on the beach can be so shiok and I didn't know it. Maybe the sun in Singapore isn't as forgiving.
Day 4:
It rained and this disrupted our plans to walk around. However, we still managed to cover the catholic and protestant churches as well as the Observatory tower which gave us a bird's eye view of Qingdao. The buildings were totally awesome (cause I'm sick of seeing traditional Chinese temples and such). In between, we spent an hour watching "The Sound of Music" in the hostel's lounge while waiting for the rain to stop though. Now, that's "nua" for you. Haha. Totally brings out the mood of the trip.
I did what the locals do! Buy the roadside Tsingtao beer which is sold to you in plastic bags!! I bought an entire bag which cost me 7rmb. Cheap cheap cheap.
But compared to the fresh beer from the museum, this was.. ehrm.. not as good. Too bad I don't have the pictures of that. Very interesting lor.
As time passed, we found ourselves making a mad scramble to the train station to board the ride back to Beijing. Darn. Such a good trip.
I miss the sea breeze, cooling weather, cheap ice-cream, milk tea, seafood.
One thing to note: roads in Qingdao are named after places in China. Like... Tibet Road, Nanjing Road, Hong Kong Road.. blah blah. Very interesting.
No comments:
Post a Comment