Beer Bash

Christine from work had an event in QingDao last Monday and invited me to come up with her on Sunday to tour that city. The tickets were affordable (about $100) and it was only an hour flight away so, sure! You may have heard of this city in another Romanization- TsingTao- yes, the beer! QingDao is halfway between Beijing and Shanghai and is close to the ocean. It's hilly, has a lot of hiking in the LaoShan mountains, and has clean air; I think I read an article how it is similar to Northern California, maybe that's why I liked it.

We got there late Sat night and stayed at a "local" hotel. I tend to bucket hotels into this category if they have a call-girl call around 10pm at night. I swear... Anyway, the next morning we drove an hour to Lao Shan, took a cable car, and hiked up a trail. From my experience with Chinese hiking so far though, it is nothing like the west. Besides the fact that people wear high heels and tight jeans, the main path is always paved. Oh, and I forgot to mention the amout of vendors selling the most random of things all along the path, shouting, annoying you... I felt like I was at Disney going up a path waiting for a rollercoaster ride. Not until the very top did we ask a local if there were any "offbeaten" tracks and she pointed for us to climb some boulders. So, we did, and that was one of the best experiences as we sought out a path and walked awhile to get a great view of the mountains.
After that, our taxi driver drove us to a beachy area and we had some fresh fish and walked along the ocean. We also helped a bunch of people look for crabs that were hiding beneath rocks.
In the afternoon we went to the TsingTao factory and did our own leisurely tour of the place. Germans had originally started the factory in early 1900s and there was a huge German community living here then. The factory was on "QingDao Beer street" and you could see vendors with numerous kegs sitting around selling beer by the plastic bag. They would give you a bag, and you could fill it up as you liked, and then they'd weigh it and give you a straw! My bag 'o beer cost me 20 cents. And it was cold and fresh- very awesome. Afterwards we took a stroll around the city, got dinner, and then I headed back on a flight later that evening.