Shanghai wasn't directly hit, but we still had buckets of rain dumped around the city and a lot of wind damage. Many companies closed - mine did not. But when I got to work and saw that myself and a co-worker were the only two people on the floor, we decided maybe coming in wasn't a great idea. It continued to get worse throughout the day, so we headed home for the afternoon. It ended up being a fun night of drinking wine and eating random food that my co-workers and I had in our apartments since every restaurant and delivery service was closed. Great way to bond! Overall, not extremely scary, but still a big storm. Here is a pic of the storm from my balcony:
On to Qingdao. So first things first ... "Ching-dow". That's how you say it. This cute little (well, maybe not so little) town on the East coast of China is where I spent a weekend recently. It's internationally known for being the home of Tsing Tao beer. I'm not really sure why the beer name and the city name aren't spelled the same in English - likely an error at some point in time. Have you tried it before? I've had it at a few restaurants in Columbus even. My co-workers Erika and Jayson and I decided to participate in a group tour of lovely Qingdao, which included a visit to the International Beer Festival.
The weekend started off with the standard frustrations of being a traveler in a foreign country - airline delays, change of hotel plans at the last minute from our tour company, trouble communicating with the front desk, etc. Our front desk staff was awesome though - they were calling friends and family who spoke English and having us communicate through them. One guy even gave us his English-speaking son's cell phone number in case we needed anything in Qingdao! So nice. Just when we were starting to feel good about the trip, we walked into the room:
We headed to dinner, mostly to escape the hotel room, and ended up seeing a beautiful part of the coastline:
The morning started off with us learning that even though we were to be part of a group tour, the group consisted of the three of us and our beloved tour guide Brandon. Actually that was fine by us - personalized itinerary! We headed to Mt. Laoshan to do an "easy hike". At least that was what the agenda said. After 45 minutes of straight stairs up the side of the mountain, I realized this was no easy hike. But it was gorgeous and totally worth it:
This sign definitely says, "Treasuring life and no climbing". Thanks for the tip.
We went to the beach. Despite the rampant seaweed, it was quite nice. We also were able to witness a fashion trend happening in Qingdao:
Aahh! The face-kini! The trend is sweeping the nation: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/08/20/159366234/on-chinese-beaches-the-face-kini-is-in-fashion. Pale skin is very in and sun is very out, so this is clearly the solution for how to go to the beach and get no sun. Such a contrast from US beach-going vacations!
The beer festival was a hit. We checked it out Saturday night and again Sunday afternoon. An even bigger hit? Us - the laowai. We heard this word over and over throughout our Qingdao adventure. It loosely means "foreigner", though I think it's a bit more demeaning. Like so many other words, those of us who are laowai have embraced the word and made it cool (there's even a magazine called Laowai!). Nearly everywhere we went, we heard screams of "laowai!" and fingers unabashedly pointing at us. A few people literally wanted to take pictures of us or with us. This must be what it's like to be a celebrity. This never happens in Shanghai because there are throngs of laowai, but apparently in Qingdao we were the real attraction.
The first indication that it would be a good night was when we walked into a pavillion and basically EVERY man had his shirt off drinking and singing along with the band on stage. Have I brought up the shirtless/shirt-raised fashion statement yet? When it gets hot, the trendy thing for men to do is to roll up their shirts and rest the rolled up part on their bellies. Not sure if that actually helps anything, but hey - whatever. Here are a few of my favorites from the two days of the festival:
In the last one, a camera crew came over to film the crazy laowai. I'm pretty sure I might be featured on the 2013 festival advertising - come see foreigners!
And as a side note, this gentleman captured the general feel of the place:
Don't worry - I stayed and waited long enough to see that he was breathing. Someone enjoyed their Tsing Tao a little too much!
On Sunday we also went to Xiaoqingdao Island, complete with a "Behave civilized when you visit the garden" sign, then headed to the beach:
What a great weekend! China has a lot to offer. There are so many neat cities to visit and just not enough time!
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