My Qingdao Beerthday.

the hotel knew it was my bday and dropped off these.

just outside the elevators on ground floor in our hotel, every night, there were 3 "hairdressers" offering "massage" services: K, marilyn monroe and brownie. here's their card.

a peek at a mansion villa thru stone walls at BaDaGuan. the only view i could actually afford!

some dude showing off his skatin' skills at some indoor skating rink in a vegas-like arcade place. i'm getting flashbacks of Skateway w Depeche mode playing.

one of the Bathing beaches at BaDaGuan. You can see the stone Russian home far in the distance.

Dengzhou lu, the street the brewery was on. very euro looking

the QD brewery

2 workers staring at endless amounts of beer bottles

beer and nuts--the perfect combo

int'l wall of beer

can you spot the beer god?

QD brewery

Little QD Island--i really enjoyed the rocks and sea here.

View from Little QD island

Little QD island rocks. Reminds me of Laguna beach rocks.

Little QD island ocean view.

at the top of the Qingdao TV tower. it was an unusually nice and clear day and we took the taxi driver's advice to go check out the view. so glad we did!

being sold in our hotel room. this cracked me up. you get all this for just 50rmb!

Little Fish Mountain. dig the pagoda and the stud below it.

loved the view atop Little Fish Mtn. you can see the remnants of German architecture and the view of the ocean.

cuddling behind the governor's residence. there was a cool grassy area which i think was the backyard.

Former German Governor's residence--pretty cool.

the shit they sell in the May 5 plaza along the docks.

there it is! the famous torch symbolizing the May 4 movement! it's what began the whole communism movement.

beijing olypmics remnants. the sailing portion took place in QD.

live seafood you chose to be cooked and die!

Qingdao was a fun, relaxing and interesting b'day trip. i particularly enjoyed Little Fish Mountain, the red rooftops, the bathing beaches, BaDaGuan, the Qingdao TV Tower, the former Governor's residence, Little Qingdao Island, Qingdao Brewery, the remnants of the Beijing olympics, May 4 Plaza...well that would be everything! I love the coastal seaside feel of this town. The cool weather after the rain was a nice reprieve from the harsh humidity of shanghai. It reminded me alot of Seattle. I think the space needle type structure, wharfs and docks, ocean, seafood and overcast sky and rain were the similarities. Aside from not knowing what live seafood to pick and how to cook it, no real menus in the restaurants, the taxi drivers refusing to take us to our destination after telling them where, and some attempted scamming, it was the best birthday trip ever! I will download all the pics on facebook eventually b/c it would take forever to do it one by one onto my blog but will share some highlights. I can't say it was nice to be back in SH b/c as soon as we set foot in SH, the heat and humidity made us both want to go back to Qingdao. I especially miss the Qingdao Gold, this really good Qingdao beer we got for 8rmb at our hotel "arcade." It was fun taking swigs of it while walking down the street where the brewery was. We never got to drink the beer out of a plastic bag and straw, as locals do it, but I heard it tastes kinda weird anyway. Also, the locals aren't as used to seeing White people, and a white man with a Chinese girl so Dave got tons of blatant stares. But we're so used to it, it's actually kind of funny. This one girl asked to take a pic of dave at the TV tower. At first I thought she was trying to sell us the photo but it ends up she just wanted to take a snap of a white person. We got to ride the Maglev to the SH airport. It's this cool Monorail type thing where the train runs on magnets and levitates!! It's quite cool and we got to see how the other half lives--the view was of how the poor people lived way out in the boonies. The travel there was kinda hectic b/c although we arrived early, we couldn't figure out where to check in and if we needed to get some tickets. The line was long, people were cutting, and there was a half an hour delay. Then we had to push our way thru to get our tickets checked, squeeze into a shuttle then pile into the plane--such is the nature of travelling in china. The way back was much easier. When we got to QD, we had hotel shuttle take us to our hotel but didn't get in til way past 10. So we grabbed some late dinner at a cafe in the hotel and that's when we discovered QD Gold! We had awesome Korean and German food there too. We were looking for Bar Street then when the crazy taxi driver dropped us off at Disco street where there were tons of shady clubs, we figured this was it. After eating Korean, we kept walking and appeared to hit Bar Street. I later learned that by the brewery, there was also a Bar Street. That's the other thing there--taxi drivers create their own street lanes. They make 5 lanes out of 3. They drive in oncoming traffic to make shortcuts and cut in front of people. I have never feared for my life in a taxi cab as I did in QD! And the people there are pretty fearless too. They wait in the middle of a busy street to cross it! Crazy!