Qingdao, Day 2

Originally, this was supposed to be Qingdao days 2-4, but this post will just be the intro to Qingdao and Day 1.  Since I have A LOT of pictures, this will allow me to post more of them.

After the Laoshan Mountains, we spent three more days in Qingdao before returning to Shanghai.  We did a lot of walking the waterfront, and we ate good food.  In total, I took almost 900 pictures in Qingdao, and I would love to show you all of them, but there is no room in this post, so I will pick out the best.  I am currently writing this in the airport without wifi, so I cannot upload the pictures right now, but I will later. 

Qingdao has a similar geography to San Francisco.  It is located on a peninsula, and is very hilly.  Also, the way the neighborhoods were put together felt a lot like the San Francisco, but with a distinctly Chinese culture very separate from San Francisco culture.

Here we go:

Day 1: Laoshan Mountains, see previous post, but for the heck of it, I will add another picture:

Day 2: Walking the waterfront

The second day of the trip involved walking between 5 and 6 miles, essentially from one downtown area of the city to another.  We began by taking a taxi to the downtown waterfront area.  The taxi driver seemed very friendly and offered to take us for free to the Navy Museum if we purchased tickets.  Instead, she dropped us off in front of a shady, colorful looking stand selling “tickets” to some waterpark for 130 RMB, or $20.  We did not purchase the tickets, and the taxi driver began yelling at us.  We paid for the taxi fare, and made a beeline for the waterfront.

The waterfront was quite nice, with a lot of rocks that looked a bit like the rocks in Lake Superior Provincial Park near Wawa, Ontario.  Rocks separate each bay, and the rocks are quite fun to climb over.

We also walked by a very busy beach.  People were sunbathing, swimming, and doing general beach things, but there were a lot of people.  Like A LOT of people.

Finally, tried to catch a cab.  We spent about a half hour and could not find an available cab.  Instead, we saw a Ferrari and this:

Finally, we arrived back to the Hotel, relaxed for a little bit before going to have a hotpot (Very similar to fondue, where you cook your food in a boiling liquitd) dinner, where we turned this:

 Into this:

The soup was delicious; it looked like this:

Days 3 and 4 will probably be posted soon, probably before you wake up to read this.