YakShaving

I’m so behind on my blog, jeez. Here’s an update from a few weeks ago that was sitting in my drafts folder I’m finally finishing up.

I went to Qingdao with Christine and a few new friends (Nancy and Janne).

A few highlights:

• We took the Tsingtao (Qingdao) museum tour. Did you know that Tsingtao is the largest export from China by volume and the most widely recognized Chinese brand? If you go to Qingdao definitely don’t miss the “drunk room”. It simulates the feeling of being drunk. I’m still amazed and confused by how it works.
• We saw Qingdao from the observation deck (the three red balls at the top of a huge hill in Qingdao, you can’t miss it.
• Went to a delightful little French restaurant, called La Luna. It was a great place to hang out, nice ambiance.. but our waitress struggled beyond belief.
• I now have a copyright on the name “Shandong”– a variant of “Shandy” . A Shandong is Tsingtao and Sprite mixed up. It works particularly well because Qingdao is in the Shangdong province.



• Surprisingly saw very few expats in Qingdao. I expected that a vacation destination that’s so “Bavarian” might have a lot more Europeans at the least. So I was wrong.

Ready for it? Here comes the pixel lovin’…

Red balls. Actually Qingdao observation tower

Christine and Nancy outside the Qingdao observation deck

Janne outside Qingdao observation deck. She looks happy!

Man, that’s a lot of people on that pier

Qingdao is just a marvelous place, esp. from the observation deck.

This picture gives you a sense for what Qingdao is really like on a Saturday afternoon.

Nancy was solicited by a street vendor who wanted to guess her name for 5Y. Here she is explaining something in Chinese. I just took the picture.

Some of these buildings have a lot of old world character.

This is hilarious. The lady was unwilling to sell us any popcorn (some tour group had bought a very large amount for the evening, but Nancy somehow convinced her.

I was absolutely convinced this guy was fake. He was SO still. He didn’t move for a minute and we thought he was fake. Then he scared us by standing up and we all screamed, which I think he enjoyed.

The Tsingtao museum. 100 years of Chinese beer in 2003.