Qingdao - China's Switzerland But Not Really - Jul 21, 2008

We flew China Southern into Qingdao and caught a ride to the Beijing airport with Jeffrey as he drove Rebecca’s parents to catch their flight back to Canada. It was difficult saying goodbye to Howard and Sue. We had a great time with them in Beijing and will miss their company. Rebecca, especially, was grateful for the time with her parents. We have to admit that we also enjoy the increase in our standard of life (with the strangely coincidental decrease in our spending) that seemed to coincide with their visit.

Having seen all we wanted to of Beijing, we had still some time to kill before our flight to Malaysia. In all honesty, by this time, we were tired of China and its daily challenges and were looking for a place to relax for a few days and spend my 31st birthday. Qingdao, at first glance, seemed to fit this bill.

The town got its start when it became a German concession area in the late 19th Century. The Germans took over in 1898 under a 99-year lease. Some of the German architecture remains, and Qingdao makes a big deal of their ‘better late than never’ attempts at conservation, restoration and promotion. The German Architecture is scattered throughout the city and consists mostly of churches, villas and municipal buildings now converted into hotels and shops. There is also a rather impressive train station. The waterfront has been converted into a nice park and walkway system that stretches around the coast. We walked past parks, markets, kiosks with nice views of bays and the city providing the backdrop.

Presumably due to this German/Bavarian history, the Chinese refer to Qingdao as “China’s Switzerland”. Maybe another city already had dibs as “China’s Germany”. Regardless, whoever came up with this moniker has clearly never been to Switzerland. We failed to see any connection between the mountainous, landlocked European country known for its chocolate, watches and cheese, and the Chinese beach town known for sailing, a brewery, and as a retirement destination for Chinese commies.

Qingdao is situated on the coast of China, almost half way between Beijing and Shanghai. It has a population of approximately 2 million, which makes it a small city by Chinese standards. Qingdao is the site of the all Olympic sailing and wind surfing events. The excitement of these events can be felt throughout the city, and the beautification and celebrations that were evident in Beijing were also present in Qingdao.

Along with its reputation as a sailing city, Qingdao is also China’s premier beach city. The city is actually situated on a peninsula and surrounded by water on three sides. There are six municipal beaches at different locations throughout the city, although none of them could be mistaken for Thailand or Bali. In fact, the beaches most resembled those often seen on Northern Alberta lakes. We were again hounded by rainy weather throughout our stay and thus never had the opportunity to take in the beaches. The beaches are also plagued by an invasion of blue algae that has taken over the Qingdao harbour. The algae are considered a threat to the Olympic venue and China has addressed this issue using their greatest natural resource: manpower. We witnessed hundreds of ‘volunteers’ shoveling the algae from the water and beach into plastic bags. Despite the weather and the gross algae, there were still Chinese tourists relaxing on the beach.

Qingdao is experiencing the same construction boom that we’ve witnessed throughout China. Skyscrapers are going up everywhere, and to such an extent that there is no discernable downtown area. Instead, there are collections of commercial and residential towers throughout the city. We thought that we were going to a nice beach town, but there was no beachtown feel in Qingdao.

The first night we arrived we stayed in a run-of-the-mill business hotel that we booked online at the last minute. That first night we went for a long walk down to the waterfront to find a place to eat. We really had a hard time finding a decent restaurant in Qingdao. There just didn’t seem to be a lot of restaurants. In fact the Qingdao lists only 200 restaurants in the whole city of 2 million – and that includes all the fast food places and shopping mall food fairs. We ended up at a Pizza Hut, where we witnessed that most blatant display of unabashed gluttony ever.

The Pizza Hut has a salad bar, and for approximately $5.00, dinners can have one trip to the salad bar. The Chinese order as if the would anywhere else – lots of communal dishes including pastas, pizzas and appetizers – all shared. The salad bar dish is also shared and the whole family goes up to strategically load the one bowl. They build up a wall of square honeydew melon pieces, with lettuce between the layers of stacked salads and veggies. We saw some bowls that were 6 to 7 layers high. It was chaos. Items being dropped and picked up off the floor, yelling at the staff to refill emptied portions, and triumphantly returning to their table with their masterpieces, which would usually go unfinished.

The next day we changed to the YHA Old Observatory Hostel. The hostel was situated at the top of a hill and had incredible views of the town (when it wasn’t raining). The hostel had recently been remodeled, but we doubt that the bathroom plumbing was installed properly as there seemed to be some problems with sewage smells. We’ve found that the renovation jobs are often undertaking by those who either don’t know what they are doing or those who are not very good. As a result, renovations often decrease the quality, cleanliness and overall standard of a hotel. Unfortunately, we had booked the hostel and paid in advance, so we were stuck there.

It was then time to celebrate my 31st birthday. What better way to celebrate than with a tour of the world famous Tsing Tao Brewery? The Germans opened the brewery in 1903. The Japanese took over the city during WWI, occupied it until 1922, and then again from 1938 to 1945. The nectar brewed in Tsingtao Brewery uses mineral water from Laoshan Spring, which contributes to the beer’s great taste and reported ‘medicinal’ properties. A tour of the brewery takes about an hour and includes free beer at a mid-point stop and more free beer at the end. The tour winds through some of the old brewery buildings, with exhibits explaining the history of beer making, the history of Tsing Tao, numerous brewing instruments dating back to 1903, as well as old advertisements.

For dinner we went to an Indian restaurant commended in local the expat magazine. As it was a Saturday night, we were concerned that we may need to make a reservation. But upon arriving, we realized were the only ones dining there. Fortunately, the food was good and we had a great evening celebrating my 31st year.

As mentioned earlier, tropical storms were hitting the coast of China it rained the entire time we were in Qingdao, so we were very limited in what we were able to see and do while we were there.

Our flight out of China leaves from Hangzhou airport, so we have to make a return trip there. When we tried to leave for Hangzhou, we found out that all the trains out of Qingdao were already booked. It would have been 28-hour bus ride to Hangzhou, so we decided to fly with a last minute deal. We booked a flight with Air China, had a decent flight to Hangzhou, where we will have to spend a day excitedly waiting to leave China for Malaysia.