Qingdao, China

Written by Rosie....After a chaotic few days at Tai Shan we took the train to Qingdao, which is on the East Coast, in Shandong Province. We had read that it was famous for it`s fod, and we weren@t disappointed. We found lots of street stalls selling a huge variety of delicious food, mostly cooked in front of us. We chatted to the street stall owners, somehow in mandarin, and with the help of a dictionary. We were befriended one night by a guy desperate to practise his English, who took us on a mini tour of Qingdao. The town is famous for its beer, but it was really weak, weaker than shandy! and we prefered the wine, which tasted a bit wierd but was drinkable.(Chinese grapes are monster sized and don`t taste anything like european grapes). Qingdao was a german colony for about 90 years, so there are some german style buildings which draw chinese tourists from all around. For us they don`t look so exotic of course. The city is going to host the sailing part of the olympics in 2008, but the local people seem like they haven`t seen many foreigners before.... we got a lot of attention, (mostly friendly)and a few people wanted to buy dollars from us. When we persuaded them we only had pounds, we sold some of those to people who were fighting over them for some reason. The harbour in Qingdao was surrounded by seedy massage parlours posing as hairdressers, and when Leon innocently went to the cash point one time he was accosted, but he managed to get away!

Catch !

The main reason for coming to Qingdao was to catch the ferry to Japan, but it turned into more. Photos to follow!!!

Chef and his assistant

cute dog

dead duck

Leon eating yummy street food

Not so yummy street food

Qindao beach at night

Qingdao sunset

Street market