qingdao (part1): qingdao

welcome to the continuation of my blog "ontheroad"

Qingdao (青岛; Qīngdǎo; also known as Tsingtao), is regarded by some Chinese as one of the most beautiful and clean cities in China. With a population of around 3.5 million, it is one of the largest cities in Shandong Province. The name Qingdao means The Blue/Green Island. In 2008, Qingdao was named China's 7th-most livable city. 
wikitravel.org/en/Qingdao

the security at jinan east train station were especially thorough in their document check. not only my train ticket but my passport and visa too. eventually they were satisfied that everything was in order and they let me through into the building. the station was under repair and the waiting hall seemed quite grubby. i was lucky that i met a student there who was also taking the same train, and i got talking with him. lucky also that he could speak some english too. then when the train came, we got escorted to the platform and we had to go into our respective compartments.

arriving in qingdao, i had arranged a couchsurfing place and was told to take a bus to ‘jusco’. i had no idea where it was but again i found someone on the bus who told me when to get off. my host luo kuang was there waiting for me with another guest, and we took another bus to even further out into the suburbs and to her flat in a skyscraper. 19th floor i think out of 30, i think.

luo kuang was a fantastic cook and she absolutely refused my help in the kitchen. she was there for ages but we ate a feast of a dinner... including oysters and dumplings, sweet potatoes and other dishes....  yum yum yum! i had to get up early as she had to work on the weekend at an engineering firm, so i took a look around downtown qingdao. good to see the sea again after jinan, and breathe the fresh(er) air. we had more guests for dinner, which she again cooked all by herself, again refusing any help. and again it was a feast. the spanish lads there agreed to host me for the next couple of nights as they were also on couchsurfing and luo kuang couldn’t host me after the weekend. so after dumping my gear at a local shop, i went around qingdao again, again walking along the waterfront and beaches into the centre of the downtown area near the train station.

i stayed at eloy and angel’s place for a couple of nights... it was not too far from luo kuang's place and i managed to suss out the bus connections. it was in a high rise too, and the lads were very hospitable too. then i got the news that jing was in town and we agreed to meet at the unmistakeable location commonly known as “mcdonalds near the train station”. if i had a penny for all the rendezvous i’ve ever had at “mcdonalds near the train station”..... and then she turns up accompanied with some guy... who she introduces as her boyfriend. well, well, she didn’t ever mention a boyfriend in her emails or texts!

we catch up quickly on some news before we all grab a cab to find a new hotel place for them. once that is sorted, we get breakfast and then take a tour of some scenic spots in qingdao.... the pier, the pagoda on the hill, the beachfront... unfortunately, i cannot speak chinese and lee doesn’t understand english... so jing is busy doing a lot of translation work. after a good lunch in the food hall at parkson’s department store,  jing and lee say that they are going back to where they live in rongcheng near weihai, and they invite me to come too. i had wanted to find out if i could find some work in weihai in any case, and jing had said that it would be possible.

we take the bus the next morning and reach rongcheng in about 4 hours, and a bus into town. after lunch (again they refused to let me pay for anything), we split up:  jing goes to stay with her folks, and i go with lee to a ‘village’ where he lives with his mum. it was a small, simple ‘house’ where they lived, and i got to share the room with lee. he cooked up a great dinner and we shared the meal when his mum got back from work. then he borrows the scooter from his aunt next door, and we blaze a trail back into town for a karaoke night, or ktv as it’s known in china.

we meet up with jing and her equally cute younger sister, and take a cab to the ktv place. there are many different rooms, depending on the size of the party. we would be 6 altogether as another couple would come later, and with drinks and snacks ordered, we got down to business on the karaoke computer. a screen on the wall displayed the videos and lyrics and mics duly primed, we were off. they found some ‘english’ tracks for me...  i wasn't going to get away without singing just on the excuse that i couldn’t read the chinese lyrics!! i ended up doing a very sarcastic version of lionel ritchie’s ‘hello’.... and going way over the top with it!!

jing’s sister turned out to be a natural, and jing and lee were not bad either. the girl from the other couple didn’t look like she was having any fun as she sat sullenly without talking or interacting, whilst her boyfriend was the complete opposite. in the end, she storms out and he has to bid farewell as he goes to catch up with her. after a couple of hours, lee and i take the bike ride back through the eerily quiet roads in the chilly night air.

the next day, we meet again for a last brunch before they put me on the local bus to weihai. i had a job contact to chase up and i had also contacted a couchsurfing host there. i met up with roro (‘meat-meat’) at the local kfc near the bus station. as she couldn’t host me herself, she took me to her friend’s flat where i would be staying and i dumped my gear there before we went to take a look around weihai. she had quit her job the day before and so had a lot of free time to show me around the waterfront area and back to the ‘centre’.

we met up with her friend and they took me to a korean restaurant for dinner. they ordered a lot of food, in the end we had to take the fried fish in a doggy-bag back home with us. they refused to let me pay my share for the meal. then we went to where roro was taking taekwondo classes. it was an educational visit for me as i had never seen anything of this martial art. they asked me if i wanted to join in but after all that food and me being very unfit in general, i declined the offer. it was enough just to be impressed as the instructor literally flew through the air to launch a flying kick in mid-air.

i got a really good night sleep in the huge double bed roro’s friend had in the spare room. and the next morning, they took me down to the street to get breakfast of dumplings and warm soya milk and some fried dough things. i had given up on the idea of chasing the job contact as i had already decided that i would start the job search in qingdao. instead, roro took me to get a long overdue ‘short-back-and-sides’. again, roro refused to let me pay for the haircut. back at the flat, she got around to preparing lunch. again, she wouldn’t let me help her at all, but i had to insist on at least chopping some onions and garlic. and then she kicked me out of the kitchen. wow, it was a fantastic meal!

roro accompanied me to the bus-station to help me buy a ticket back to qingdao, and i couldn’t thank her enough. the bus dropped me off at the main bus station in a part of qingdao i didn’t recognise. fortunately, i met someone at a bus-stop who, in his poor english, helped me onto a couple of buses back to the train station from where i could get my bearings to kaiyue youth hostel. the hostel was full, but they found a make-shift place for me in the cd-room. little did i know that i would end up staying at this hostel for the rest of my stay in china!

i got to discover qingdao quite well in those first couple of months when i had no work and lots of free time. i walked a few times along the seafront and joined the throng on zhon zian pier a few times. i've got to discover my neighbourhood around the youth hostel. a couple of visits to the taidong area with its food streets and shopping malls. i got to the top of fushan, a scenic hilly area not far the central business district; great views from the top there, but i still haven’t got around to going to laoshan, the really scenic mountain area a couple of hours’ bus ride along the coast from qingdao. i heard that it was a little expensive to get in and climb to the top.... guillame and charlotte had managed to find a way to go for free but had a tough ordeal doing so skirting a military base and camping out with just hammocks and lots of mosquitoes. i have some days free before i catch the ferry over to south korea at the start of august so maybe i will finally get to climb to the top of laoshan.