Qingdao

We unfortunately only had one day in Qufu, which was a shame as the town was laid-back and attractive, but we also really wanted to make it to Qingdao - China's answer to Blackpool (find a Brit to ask if you don't understand) - and set off the next morning by bus and train. We had chosen to travel by hard sleeper, and if you've ever wanted to see what a sleeper train in China looks like, here it is.
We were lucky in that the train was almost completely empty, but it really isn't a bad way to travel in any case. The journey was long, but we were going to the beach, and it had a little of that childhood holiday feeling about it as the sun came out and the fields rolled past. We arrived around 4pm but after the usual hassle finding a hostel and sorting out tickets to leave it was well into the evening. This was no big issue though, the city seemed most alive at night. We walked down the waterfront, which was still packed full of bathers and ate at a great little streetside place serving barbecued food. We left the choice of food up to the owner, which worked out pretty well. The chicken hearts weren't bad even. Something we'd maybe not have chosen ourselves(!) but it ticked off the 'eat something strange' box on Russell's Chinese experience checklist. Qingdao is where they brew the famous Tsingtao beer (Tsingtao is the old way of writing Qingdao) and here they were serving it straight from the barrel. The locals kept asking us if it tasted good and beamed with pride when we told them it was excellent. They were a friendly bunch.
We even managed to sample the Qingdao nightlife and asked a taxi driver to take us to a bar. He dropped us off infront of one that had a half American railroad, half Scottish theme called 'One Way Ticket Bar'. It was well random. All the staff were running round in their interpretation of Scottish traditional costume, which we both found most amusing. One overly tartaned waitress sat us down, took our order and dropped some pens and paper in front of us. We didn't know why. We'd only been sat a few minutes when a waitress brought over a couple of notes, one in English from a Minnie and Mika and another one in Swedish asking for us to join them for a drink. We had no idea where they'd come from and didn't really know what to do at first. Then we got another one, and another! It turns out we'd found our way to a popular singles bar where the staff deliver little notes between people like you might do at school when you're thirteen! No wonder the place was so full on a Thursday night! It was cool though and we had a really nice time chatting with Minnie, Mika and Sophia while the band with the unexplained huge stuffed teddy bear sang away in the background. A good night.The next day was one for the beach. Qingdao is a major summer tourist destination, with people flocking to the many beaches by the thousands. It's an interesting city because it was colonised for a while by the Germans, who brought with them the secret of brewing good beer and established the Tsingtao brewery all those years ago. It's a big city these days but still has plenty of faintly Germanic architecture if you look hard enough. It definitely didn't look Chinese anyway.

One of the benefits of meeting Minnie and Mika and co. was that we got to ask the locals where the best beaches are to go. We were told to go to one called 'shi lao ren hai shui yu chang', or something along the lines of 'old stone man beach'. It was a bit of a ride in the taxi but was really quite good. Not as packed as some of the other beaches we saw and pretty clean too. It was damn hot though and the we just sweated off the suncream no matter how often we reapplied it. I came back that day with the most interesting tan lines, now sadly/gladly faded! The most bizarre thing about that day was our fellow Chinese bathers. The men all went into the sea while still wearing their underwear! In some cases they'd put trunks or shorts on over the top of their underwear or most of the time just go straight in in their y-fronts. Those undies must have been 100% cotton as the amount of sagging going on was really quite alarming. Seeing these skinny men walk around in huge saggy baggy pants almost down to their knees was really not attractive!The next morning we had to get up at 4am to take Russell to the airport. Our best efforts to find a train or bus to take us both back to Beijing in time for Russell to get his flight back to the UK had been unsuccessful and a flight was the only option left. He had to fly alone though as my own passport was elsewhere while I was having my visa extended. I'd had a great time travelling with him over the previous two weeks and was sad to see him go. Him joining me had broken up my six weeks of travel quite nicely and stopped it getting boring, which could have been a risk. It's also good to be able to share an experience and have someone else who has seen and experienced what I have first-hand as there are certain things you just can't explain or express through writing or conversation. So having said goodbye I was left with one more day to spend in Qingdao. After catching up on my sleep back at the hostel I went for a walk.It was another gorgeous day and the coastline was beautiful in the sunshine. I walked through the European-style streets down to the many parks and beaches and even across a causeway past some moored naval vessels to a small island topped with an old lighthouse.
It was a Saturday afternoon and the beaches were absolutely packed. It was quite amazing how busy they were. I was glad I'd chosen to stick to the parks and paths that day.
I think the best thing for me about Qingdao was the food, and not just that but the whole style of eating too. Outdoor, streetside dining was the rule here and was the most fun of all. Just down the road from my hostel were a clutch of small restaurants, and I made friends with the staff at one of them. They all sat with me asking questions while I ate and it was a lot of fun. Too bad then that I had to leave for Beijing that very night.