Qingdao Update~ ~ Summer [China Edition]

Hey everyone,

After a week of resting and such, I’m finally feeling better! I’m having a tough time coping with having to leave soon and the relationships I’ve developed with people here, but everyone will always be in my heart. Also, it was my birthday this past weekend so it’s been a good reflection of who I am. Time will make everything better.

We had to present our trip in Chinese this past week so I feel like I have to do it over and over. But yeah… Our Alliance group left on a Thursday morning by plane to Qingdao. We met up with our tour guide Howard and he took us on our merry way. And I’m pretty sure we’re all sick of being a bus now because we spent a huge amount of time on the bus. For real!

Anqi and Lydia at the airport!

So many wedding pictures on the beach~

At Qingdao, we headed straight from the airport to the Badaguan area, and the beach. Sadly, the beach was not very pretty. It was rocky and gross. There was glass and such. And the water was cold. And honestly, the weather sucked the entire week we were at Shandong. It was more of a, “let’s just take pictures here…..” kind of deal. The pictures were nice? Some people went for a swim, but there were no locals really swimming. Most of them were just looking around for sea life and shells, and the like to sell to tourist. There was also a no swimming sign…..Awkward.

The water is cold!

After swimming, we went to a hotel to get some food. It was buffet style. The food was quite disappointing. I usually don’t like seafood so I never get any but since we were at Qingdao and I thought the seafood would be good by the seaside, I was like….Yeahhhh let’s try some! Nope. Not a great experience. I think people were more scared of eating the seafood and getting sick than it actually not tasting good. We went to the hotel right afterwards and it was a meh night. We mostly just chilled or watched TV.

Sad we didn't get to go on a boat tour~

The second morning, we were suppose to go on a boat tour but the weather and mist was so bad, we once again….only got to take pictures. Seriously, it was sad not being able to do anything. But after that, we went to the Beer Museum so it was redeemable. We basically just took pictures with some of the interesting scenery there and then drank Qingdao beer. After getting some lunch, we sat on the bus for a long time to get over to Tai’an. And since the weather was bad, it took pretty long.

Giulianna and I tasting some Qingdao Beer

Once we got to Tai’an, we went to see a shadow puppet show. It was refreshing to be able to enjoy that aspect of Chinese culture. It was neat and funny. I think the best part was the end, where they did gangnam style puppet show.

Right after the puppet show, we went to get supplies to hike up Tai Mountain! And everyone bought these sandwiches that turned out to be quite bad…..well, not so much bad but it barely had anything on it. The PB/J sandwiches had like a little smudge. Basically just eating white bread.

After spending another night at a hotel, we got up in the morning and bused over to Tai Mountain. Although a lot of people didn’t want to hike, we were all slowly getting pumped to hike it anyways. We got there and had to wait….and we didn’t know why. We ended up just taking the “before” pictures of hiking up the mountain. Quite a bit later, we were informed that we weren’t able to climb up the mountain because it wasn’t safe due to the weather. And we were so mad, because it had been raining for like 9 days prior, and they didn’t figure that ahead of time?

So Plan B was going to Jinan. We ended up at 大明湖 (da4 ming2 hu2), which is a huge lake. The weather wasn’t that great still and the scenery was just alright. The best part was just taking pictures and paying to get on a small electric boat that we drove around the lake. That was my favorite activity of the trip to be honest….spending our free time to do something we figured out. Just chatting and having fun with friends. And also “chatting” with the Chinese people around us.

We're on a boat!

They came at us head on! I thought we were gonna tip T.T

After the lake, we grabbed lunch and were told we’re going to a different mountain to hike. It was smaller and it had a lot of Buddhist statues and altars. It was tiring to hike all the way up. But getting to the very top was an accomplishment! There were quite a bit of hornets though. And I saw that there were locks up on the top; I’m assuming that it’s a couple related symbol since that’s a common thing to do, but I’m not entirely sure if that’s what it means here in China. Going down the mountain was the worst part for me because it was steep and wet. I had fell three times hiking up so I took extra caution with my slippery flat Nike’s. So advice: Bring some nice shoes with a grip if you’re planning on hiking. When I got to the bottom, I found out some people had taken a cable car up and a slide down. I mean, hiking up and down was an accomplishment, but that would have made my life easier!!!!!

The tallest point!

Eddie and I were excited we made it to the top!

We drove back to the hotel at Tai’an and had time to ourselves. I ended up showering and headed out with some friends to buy some snacks for the train ride and had some Pizza Hut. Also, Pizza Hut in China is like a nice sitdown place. After Pizza Hut, we went to a bar right across the street and had some drinks. It was fun because I was with people I didn’t usually hang out with and we were just enjoying ourselves in a different country.

The last day, we drove to Qufu, which is the hometown of Confucius. We waited a really long time to get in and it was so hot. And when we got in…..Blah, literally, it was not interesting. I mean, I enjoyed learning some history and seeing the traditional Chinese life but our tour guide just went from place to place with brief descriptions. Apparently, the other tour guides there did a lot better job explaining and such. I honestly just wanted to go home at that point.

After the tour of the mansion, we ended up going to a really shady restaurant. The plates weren’t very clean and the food was not good. After trying a little bit of the dishes, my friend and I just decided we were going for the snacks.

We went to the high speed train station and waited for over an hour to get on our train. I thought the fast train was nice but it literally stopped like every 15 minutes. It was more of a train stopping everywhere in China than a train from point A to point B. And on the train, there were so many kids being so loud. I was going crazy from the noise! At one point, there was a fight that broke out because a kid touched a lady’s butt. I don’t even. We got delayed for a little while.

Best part of the train, I ended up getting sick and vomited all over myself….at first I thought it was motion sickness, but after vomiting a few times, it definitely was from the shady restaurant. And I was dying for awhile. Literally. I’m all better now though soooo. Enjoy my post.