A weekend in Qingdao, Shandong

Linda was finally able to deliver her birthday present to yours truly, and last Friday evening I was whisked off to Hongqiao Airport for the revelation of my mystery weekend location. Qingdao, Shandong Province.

There were many highlights, and like many places you visit, you could easily write write, write, and write more about everything you saw and experienced there etc etc.

I'm not going to do that, cause I'm lazy, but I have uploaded a great deal of photos to my flickr page. Read through the Qingdao flickr set and you'll see what we got up to.

Here's some thumbnails of what you'll see there....

So, more about the weekend away (in the ever-faithful bullet point format for the lazy)...

• Hongqiao Airport in Shanghai is much more user-friendly than Pudong.
• Flying internally in China poses no problems whatsoever. Our flights with China Air and Eastern China airlines were both uneventful.
• Qingdao has its own dodgy Chinglish signs.
• Qingdao Airport isn't run-down (Lonely Planet description) - rather its architecture is right out of the futuristic mould. Very impressive.
• Qingdao airport also has its private taxi touts that want RMB100+ to take you to downtown Qingdao (about 35km away). We were warned by a nice local about these guys, as often they decide to re-negotiate with you while you're in the middle of nowhere, or deliver you to the location and double the cost again. The airport has a shuttle bus that will take you downtown (eventually) for about RMB15.
• I tried to recruit a local Chinese chemist working for a Swiss company for my workplace. What am I turning into? Its a holiday Tim, remember?
• Qingdao will host the Sailing events for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. In case you didn't know, you'll be confronted with this information wherever you turn in Qingdao.
• We stayed right on Taiping Lu near the Number 6 bathing beach in a hotel called Zhanqiao Bingyuan (Zhan Bridge Hotel). It was a mere stone's throw away from the Zhan Qiao (Zhan Bridge or Pier) on which is located the famous Qingdao Huilan Ge (Huilan Pavilion). The same pavilion on the labels of Tsingtao Beer! Apparently Sun Yat Sen (the founder of modern independent China) stayed in the very same hotel back in the 1920's. Besides a few modern updates, I don't think much has changed in there since then. Nice hotel though.
• Qingdao was cold, foggy and a little windy (as you'd expect from a seaside location). The beaches aren't what an Australian would call inviting. Heaps of people everywhere, rough sand, lots of rocks, no surf. It reminded me of an English beach, or a beach you'd find around the Redcliffe area in Brisbane. It was good to see the beach and ocean again, but I do yearn for the white clean sand, strong sun, a clear patch of space and the crashing of waves you find back home.
• Linda's Chinese got a workout. It was pretty good to watch. Another example of why I should try harder to learn more Zhongwen.
• Qingdao has an awful lot of revolving buildings. The Xinhaoshan Gongyuan (Signal Hill Park) has three mushroom-shaped buildings which resemble testicles on a hill, one of which revolves every 20 minutes. There is a foreboding grinding of stone on stone as the building turns on itself. Very tacky. A little while after leaving this park, we went looking for Tsingtao Brewery Tour tickets at The Huiquan Dynasty Hotel. That was unproductive, but this hotel located near the Number 1 Bathing Beach has a 25th floor revolving restaurant. Two revolving buildings in one day...? That was a surprise.
• Speaking of lunch, buffets are big business in Qingdao's Hotels. We ate 2 buffet lunches while we were there; one in the aforementioned Huiquan Dynasty Hotel (Badaguan area near No. 1 Bathing Beach) and another in the Oceanwide Elite Hotel (near our hotel on Taiping Lu near the Number 6 Bathing Beach). RMB60-80 for an all you can eat stuffing. Nice.
• Qingdao's downtown area looks deserted and run-down. Although the deserted aspect might be understandable as this isn't peak tourist season, the state of this area was surprising to me - I thought an area like this would have been perfect for urban renewal. There's a number of grand European-style buildings in this area which are begging to be turned into B&Bs (Bed & Breakfasts), however most are falling down slowly. It appears more public investment has been put into the Badaguan area (which looks awesome) than in downtown area. We went looking for a nice place to eat on Saturday night in the downtown area, but ended up in MacD's as none of the dining options looked appealing. Most were grimy hole-in-the-wall establishments. And considering we were looking for Qingdao's famous kebabs, our standards weren't too high to begin with.
• Qingdao loves underground things. Underground pedestrian walkthroughs, underground malls, underground shopping facilities. Fixation on the underground aspects. Does it get that cold here that people need to ferret away during the colder months?
• My favourite area is the BaDaGuan (The Eight Passes) area. One of the older areas of Qingdao, it has a number of stately European-style homes, villas which are accessed by leafy boulevardes and avenues. It was beautiful during the autumn period we were there.
• The German influence on Qingdao is ever-present. Cobble-stoned roads, winding hilly laneways, stone buildings, red-tiled rooves, Protestant and Catholic Churches - its all there. Close your eyes and you could be in Europe.
• Qingdao has a heap of parks and parkland areas. We didn't visit them all, but most are readily accessible from the downtown area.
• The Lonely Planet Guide To China, Qingdao section appears to be quite out of date. We couldn't arrange a tour of the Tsingtao Brewery by following their advice. Apparently you just need to turn up to the brewery and after paying admission you receive a guide. Something to remember for next time.
• Taxis are cheap. RMB6 flag-fall, and most trips didn't cost us more that RMB12. Although, some of taxi drivers wouldn't take our fares for some reason - too much trouble taking us 'over' the hill perhaps?
• Qingdao has hills. That was a real novelty coming from Shanghai. As most of the old town is set upon a hilly ridge, you get to explore some amazing old style winding streets. You can get very disorientated walking around this area. Our guide books & other tourist paraphernalia that I've read recommended getting a good map of Qingdao. We skipped that, and relied on the taxi service.
• Even in deep autumn, there were a lot of domestic tourists in Qingdao. The beach was covered in people. I couldn't imagine what the summer months would be like. I'd imagine quite scary.
• The outer areas of Qingdao are grimy, industrial, and some areas appear really polluted. We observed a lot of this on our trip from downtown Qingdao to the airport via taxi (RMB60). The city area is much more appealing.

Overall, I enjoyed our getaway. We only had a small amount of time there, and after I returned, I've learnt a lot more about Qingdao and the surrounding area. A few more days there and I'm sure we would have really enjoyed the surrounding mountain side areas like Laoshan, and probably even more of the Shandong Peninsula coastline. For the best of Qingdao, I reckon you would be best advised to visit during the warmer months where you could fully appreciate the location and the weather.

Also, I need to travel more...

Some websites where I learnt more about Qingdao...
Qingdao Tourism - an official site.
MyRedStar - A Qingdao Lifestyle Web Site & Community - appears to be quite good.
Wikipedia on Qingdao - or the same webpage by Anonymouse
TripAdvisor on Qingdao - TripAdvisor's webpage on Qingdao.

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