Qingdao Beach and Beer

Qingdao is known for it’s beaches and the Tsingtao beer. I took a high-speed train from Beijing to Qingdao. Top speed was 301km/h with an average speed of 170km/h. On the train I have met two Chinese girls and we tried to have a conversation in English. Their English was not excellent but enough to communicate a little. Both of them are working in Beijing for a telecom company and have a few days off. The week of 1 May it is grand holiday in China and everyone gets up to one full week off. Therefore it was very crowded and there was only one hostel left I could book. The Wheat Hostel I stayed in is located in the “old town” and very close to a sea food market street. Some renovation work was still ongoing to get the hostel ready for the Big-Week.

The next day I have arranged to meet the two Chinese girls near Luxun Park. We walked along the beach and they collected lots of mussels. The water was still cold and a cold breeze didn’t allow to just lay on the sand and relax. So we continued wading through the water and the girls found two sea stars. Sea creatures do really have a hard time in Qingdao as millions of Chinese flok to the beaches and happily collect any sea creatures they can find. We bumped into a local guy who was keen to show us around town. We went for food together and one of the Chinese’s sister and her boyfriend joined us too. We had more food and beer than we were able too handle and took off to explore the nearby streets. There we got some more food (!) which was stinky tofu and some sweets. All in all very tasty food.

Qingdao belonged to the Germans for a short period of time after they had captured it in 1897. The German influence can still be seen by all the churches and European looking buildings. One odd thing is that the churches’ bells have been replaced by loudspeakers and bad quality bell sounds – horrible.