Our last and longest stop on the trip was in the city of Qingdao. Qingdao is a colorful port on the Shandong Peninsula, which strangely enough used to be under German jurisdiction from around 1897-1922. The German influence is definitely still apparent, and there are several streets lined with some pretty distinctive German architecture. In the Old Town of Qingdao, there was a large cathedral, as well as several blocks of German houses. Walking around that part of the neighborhood almost made me feel like I was back in Europe, not China!
We stayed at a really cool hostel in the Old Town, which actually used ot be an old observatory. It was located high on a hill, and the dome was converted into a cafe where we could eat, socialize, and enjoy the view (though sometimes it was too foggy to see much). We spent some time in the city, and one evening we went down to the harbor to explore.
Qingdao was where China hosted the sailing events for the 2008 Olympics, so there were some Olympic remnants around the harbor, as well as a lot of shops and restaurants. Around dusk, we found a nice little patch of deserted shoreline to wander around, take a few pictures, and strike some tai-chi poses before the tide came in.
In the evening we went to a bar where a live Filipino band was playing
and spent a relaxed evening hanging out there. It was pretty late by the
time we grabbed a taxi to go back to the hostel. We had to climb the
stairs up the hill in the dark, and I was concentrating so much on not
tripping that I almost had a heart attack when one of my friends
suddenly jumped out at me from behind a wall trying to scare me.
Needless to say, he succeeded!
The next day I slept in, ate breakfast in the observatory dome, and took the bus to Stone-Man Beach, so named for the big rock formation near the shore that apparently looks like a man. The beach looked very nice, but unfortunately the weather was still too cold to enjoy it much, so we only walked around a little before heading back. No spring break on the beach for us unfortunately.
The rest of the trip was uneventful, but in a good way since it gave me some time to catch up on some reading (and sleeping) that I missed out on during a hectic Midterms week. We headed back Saturday morning. Some terrible traffic turned what was supposed to be a seven hour bus ride into a ten hour one, but I had my comfy spot in the back of the bus again, and some friends and I did our best to keep ourselves occupied by watching movies, playing cards, and eating unhealthy gas-station-stop snacks. We were happy to see Beijing once again when we finally made it back.
And so ended my spring break trip. I am back in the routine of classes again and more busy than ever. The countdown to finals is just about five weeks and I still have so much to do! But I'm also looking forward to a lot more exciting things as well (I still have to see the Great Wall, after all)! So there will be lots more to come...
