Sunday March 15th…
We started the day with a great breakfast upstairs in the café. I had eggs, sausage, and toast. It was delicious. We were trying to get some nutrients for our long walk on the coast. There were a couple of destinations that I had in mind that I wanted to see so we talked to the guy at the front desk the night before and he told us that we would be able to hit all of those locations if we just walked on the path the follows the coast.
After breakfast we started on our journey down to the coast. It was another gorgeous day, a great day to be by the water. It was about a 30-minute walk for us to reach the Yellow Sea. We first went on the Zhan Bridge/Pier. This pier is 440meters long with the Huilan Pavillion at the end. It was great to just walk out there and watch the waves crash into the side of the pavilion. Turning around to look towards the city was quite the site. First I saw the waves crashing into the very rocky beach. Many people were squatted over the way the Chinese sit for hours on end…it would kill my knees!! Then you see the skyline that is built into the hills of this unique city that you wouldn’t imagine to be in China. It was absolutely gorgeous and extremely relaxing just to be by the water.
After spending some time on the pier we headed to the scenic boardwalk that runs along the coast. Our next stop was Small Qingdao Island. The ironic thing is that it is not an island; I would call it a peninsula. There is an old lighthouse on this ‘island’…and the way the sign read, it is still working and the light can be seen for 13 miles! The whole thing has been turned into a park. It was gorgeous to go out there and just sit. We were able to see the coast and able to see the Sea for miles and miles.
So we kept walking and decided to venture off of the boardwalk onto the rocks. The rocks were filled with people, some people digging in the sand, others having picnics, but most people just sitting and thinking, pondering life perhaps. We hopped between rocks for a while and then sat for a short while and just watched the waves roll in, crash on the rocks, and then roll right back out.
Next stop on our boardwalk adventure was the Number 1 Bathing Beach in Qingdao. This sand was actually soft, not as rocky as the other beaches. We were told it gets packed in the summer. We saw a lot of old men playing volleyball in Speedos. It was like a retired community of old men who didn’t care so they walked around in either their whitie tighties or their Speedos…you just never know what you are going to see in China. We made up a scenario and we decided that this beach was the old people’s Florida; everyone goes down there to retire.
There were some restaurants along the beach and some tables set up on the sand. We stopped at one of the restaurants and the guy was just holding a squid….I knew it was going to be great seafood. The menu was all in Chinese so I asked the worker which one was his favorite on the menu…he pointed to something that was super cheap so I found a few other cheap things and was anxiously waiting to see what I got. I ended up getting some fish and beef on a stick and also a plate full of fried squid, it was so delicious. Super fresh with great flavor. Lunch was wonderful, we just sat and talked, enjoyed the sand, the water, and the sun.
While we were sitting at Lunch a heard of photographers walked by and started taking pictures of us, we just smiled, and let them take our pictures. Very strange but again the only way to describe awkward moments like that is…China.
After a great lunch we continued on our walk. We caught up to all of the photographers that were taking pictures of us. Then a girl that they had been following wanted to take pictures with us, so we did just that. It was insane, these cameras were huge and there were about 10 photographers taking pictures of us. We ended up talking to the photographers and apparently this chick was a model but none of our Chinese friends on campus recognize her picture so we have no idea who she was and what all of these camera men were doing following her.
After our big photo shoot we arrived at another one of the beaches along the way and there were brides and grooms everywhere. There must have been at least 30 couples getting their wedding pictures taken on the beach. Some of these brides were ruining their dresses; laying in the sand, some of the dress dragging in the water, etc. At first we thought maybe it was some photo shoot for a bride magazine or something but we found out that these were legit bride and grooms and they all probably got married that day. It was unbelievable how many couples were getting their photos taken.
We continued to walk a little further and then realized it was time to head back to the hostel. When we got back to the hostel we had a pineapple on a stick and then went into the hostel to grab our bags and head to the airport. The flight back to Shanghai was fine, standard procedure. We landed in Shanghai and we had arranged for the QQ’s to pick us up from the airport. Since these cabs are illegal they weren’t able to wait by the arrival area so we had to go upstairs to the drop off area for departures. We called the QQ’s and they came around the corner like the 3 mini coppers in Italian Job, and they were all different colors. It was so funny to watch.
The QQ’s got us back to campus and that concluded our spring break weekend. It was a great adventure and I was thrilled to finally have seen the Terracotta Warriors.
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