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Qingdao - 13th - 16th October
5 whole hours we managed to blag a seat and table in the staff canteen in the end, quite an achievement I think, see, it pays to play the dumb English card every now and then! (works in Oz too eh dad?! Haha)
So arriving in the coastal city of Qingdao (one if the main holiday destinations for the chinese) we get a taxi to our new hostel 'the old observatory' We had seen and heard some good things about the hostel from other travellers and web sites and on arrival it didn't disappoint. The building is literally an 'old observatory' and charges the going rate for a reasonable hostel in china, 50yuan for a 4 bed dorm and 30yuan for a 6-8bed, it was perfectly set out for travellers and in a really good central location about 5 minutes from the train station. A little door on the 3rd floor leads you up a narrow, incredibly steep staircase to what used to be the actual observatory dome, all the equipment and huge telescope is still there but surrounded by cushions, coloured lighting, music equipment and a bar to make a little chill area and out the other side of the dome is the rooftop terrace and the most impressive hostel hang-out we've seen yet! From up there you get 360 degree panoramic views of the city and sea an loads of comfy sofas and chairs, speakers playing almost-good music and coloured lighting. It was a great place to get some down time In the sun and relax for a while, and they also host a bbq every Friday and Saturday night.
Like we have managed to do in every new place so far, we went for an explore on the first night and got lost, not the bad sort of lost, more just that we didn't know where we were, on where we were going come to think about it, but that's the beauty of backpacking I suppose, I doesn't really matter how long it takes or where we end up, we've got a map and fail that….taxi!! There is a whole beached are in Qingdao (which also played host to the Beijing Olympics' sailing events) and its funny that no matter where you are in the world the sea breeze always seems to smell the same! We were lucky and had a very warm sunny few days in the city, Az and I had a walk along the beach (played the shuttlecock game!) and a wander in the sea, just so we could say that we have been in the sea on the Chinese coast! Its bizarre to see in china though as metres from the sandy/ pebble beaches, swimming tourists, tacky stalls selling shells and chinese men in speedos are these huge skyscrapers. A massive financial district and 30 storey hotels and buildings. Sea food is obviously a massive trade in this city and outside just about every shop or restaurant are tanks, buckets, pots, pans and plastic crates stuffed full with just about every animal in the sea! All alive and awaiting their fate on a chinese dinner plate are all kinds of shellfish, prawns and lobsters, starfish, sea cucumbers, crabs and turtles with no room to move and dirty water, you can choose to buy anything you like to take away or have cooked for you in the restaurant (I even saw 1 guy buy a huge live starfish and just start sucking the insides out…lovely!) Although weve been slowly but surely picking up the language we daren't eat in the restaurants, no matter how tempting it was we couldn't read the menu and there wasn't even pictures to point too! Jigga!
We were playing cards in the hostel bar one night, had had a few beers and spotted one of the 6litre bottles of whisky on the other side of the bar. With a few beers in me and feeling brave, smera and Az played cards strategically placed In the line of view of the bar staff whilst filled an empty 600ml water bottle with extremely expensive whisky! (now, this seems a bit harsh, but earlier that day the hostel had massively tried to rip us off, tried to charge us double and made us pack our bags ready to find an alternative hostel in the city, said there was no availability for our friend although it transpires that there was loads of room and they just wanted him to pay for a private room at an extortionate rate, and when we were about to leave, magically found some spare beds for me and Az when we refused to pay the private room rate and funnily enough, the room was empty except for us!) I digress… so we needed to get our own back and the whisky was calling us. The beers flowed and whisky went down nicely and the night quickly turned into a haze. We sat on the rooftop terrace, skyline lit with neon's and the light from the skyscrapers and chatted pretty much nonsense about the future and travels. This was a much needed chill and even more needed drinking night after the drought in tai'an!
The next day was a lie in and in smera's case, spent spectacularly hung over haha she'd come off worst as this was pretty much her first drink of the trip and the whisky wasn't exactly a light drink so she spent the majority of the day in bed whilst Az and I struggled to find inspiration to do anything more than get street food and drinks and potter along the sea front. It was a lovely hot day though, the sun was out and city was lively, there's always so much to just look at. The rest of the day was taken up by quite an ordeal - washing day had finally come, something id managed to avoid for the last few days but there's only so long you can go for on 7 pairs of boxers and socks and I think nearly 2 weeks was pretty good going! (where's mum and her magical 24 hour washing service when you need her?!) haha only joking mum! I was stood in shorts and flip flops in a shower, washing a whole load of clothes out of 2 plastic basins, not helped by the fact that every time I put the shower head down it would flick round and soak me, usually in the face. Over an hour later and breaking a sweat, I'd just about finished my underwear and waved the white flag after 3 t-shirts, o well, that should last me another 2 weeks, maybe 3 if I can blag a few commando days… haha (since this day I've been doing smaller, more regular washes and am pleased to inform you that I'm now an expert at showering and washing clothes at the same time lol)
The main reason that we went to Qingdao was to meet up with one of Az's friends called Adam, 27 years old and he's not really topped travelling since the age of 22. He's the man to talk oo about asia as he's travelled most of it, spent a year teaching in Thailand, a year and half teaching in Korea and is now doing another years teaching in China. We were all craving some western company and since Adam knew the city and had friends who live there we were looking forward to a couple of good nights out. By the time he turned up on Friday night Az and I had been drinking for a couple of hours at the hostel's weekend BBQ. It was 50 yuan for unlimited beer and BBQ for 3 hours so we were getting stuck in. A big group of German students had turned out and we'd spent most of the night chatting playing cards and drinking with them, Smera was still fragile from the previous nights antics so called it a night and me, Az and Adam grabbed a taxi and headed into the citycente to meet some friends of his in a bar called LPG.
This bar in the depths of China turned out to be the closest thing to anything English had we had seen since arriving in China and played host to the biggest number of westerners we had seen so far too! Pool tables, pints of beer, the odd scuffle and boys chatting up girls, a bit of normality at last. On every table in most bars in China you'll find this game; one thick plastic cup per person and 5 dice in it, an easy number guessing drinking game to start the night and get the beers flowing again and kept us entertained until Adams friends' turned up for what was the start of a very messy night out. Beers turned into long island iced teas (wrong island iced teas as they're now called) thanks to ishmaels' Russian girl-friends. 5 spirits topped with an inch of coke and an the recipe for the end of the night. We met up with some more friends of friends, this time some (lovely) Kazakhstani girls and headed to a club, I'd tell you the name but don't remember arriving there let alone the name haha more wrong islands, a bottle of whisky that ishmael had managed to blag for free and for some stupid reason tequilas (cheers dad) It was a really cool bar though and could have been anywhere in the world except for the amount of chinese, obviously. 4 in the morning and we find ourselves on the way home, memories are scarce but due to the pictures I spent the journey sitting on the open window lying across the roof of the taxi through the city, Az spent it concentrating very hard not to throw up and stared straight ahead and Adam was just winding up the taxi driver. Noodles were thrown, drinks stolen and roommates pissed off but a bloody good night!
The next day was spent very very hungover, though we managed to get ourselves into town for some steamed dumplings and sorted out our train ticket to Xi'an. We had a wander through the amazing local markets set on hills through the city and stocked up on supplies in preparation for our 23 hour train journey to Xi'an on Sunday, joy! We hit the rooftop BBQ again that night though took it a little easier this time, had another very good, very random night out that night that i wont pollute my blog with, but tell the story next time I see you in a pub! J
Up early and hanging again, get some really good steamed buns and say goodbye to Adam after he has filled myh ead with ideas of working abroad and how amazing and easy it is to get into, then set off to embark on our 23 hour train journey to our next stop, Xi'an. There was only 'hard sleeper' tickets available when we brought the tickets and I've heard mixed reviews on really how bad it is so ill report back when I find out! Meeting back up with Debbie 'the machine' which we're all looking forward to and off to see the terracotta warriors..
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