Qingdao

Our trip to Qingdao was a success. Despite initially not having a ticket for the train we boarded with high spirits and found ourselves a little corner near the toilets where we could park ourselves for the 11 hours and sleep if need be- not the best but you always have to put a brave face on things. About 5 minutes after picking our spot we were told to go to carriage 6. When we got there Dave was able, by a using mixture of hand signals and prompts that his students had prepared, to purchase us three beds. The only problem was that they didnt come free till 1am.

I discovered that there was a food cart, where for 20 yuan you got some food and could park yourself for the whole journey. Their were people in there who obviously only had standing tickets and so had paid for the food without any intention on eating it and just slept on the tables. I think we may do this next time if need be. We ate, we drank and we were merry. At some point we also managed to "acqure" a policemans helmet- and we don't remember how but somehow - it ended up in Brock's bag.



We got to the room, met and greeted the locals that we were sharing with and were impressed by the level of comfort in the dorms. This was a "soft sleeper", the most expensive normal class room you can get I think. It had a door and some storage space for your luggage. We went to sleep quite happily- after some 6 beers we were more than ready for a nap. 3 hours later I was "rudely" awoken by a hatless policeman. Blearey eyed and not knowing what was going on I was a little shocked to see a copper standing over me. All I heard was one of the Chinese guys in our cabin shouting "police cap". I tried to wake Dave. All 4 of the people there were trying to wake Dave in fact. 3 chinese people hitting him on the arse and shouting Dave in his ear and he still wouldn't wake up. It took a rather hefty smack for him to wake up. At which point he looked absolutely mortified and just started saying "Charlie, My Wallet, Give them my wallet". I explained what was going on and we sent them to Brocks room. He gave them the hat back and the copper walked past looking a little embarrassed that he had "lost" it in the first place. Ah English on tour!

The rest of the journey was thankfully pretty uneventful, although we were worried that at any moment we may get thrown off-it never happend. We got to Qindgao, purchased our return sleeper tickets and made ourway to McDonalds for Breakfast. We got a taxi to the hostel, settled in and headed out. Our first impressions were that Qingdao was amazingly European - due to its German Heritage- and would be lovely in the sun , unfortunately it was raining. We grinned and beared it, walked to the pier, looked at the beaches and some sights then went back to the hostel for a nap. When we woke up it was Glorious Sunshine, it stayed that way for the remainer of the trip!

Whilst we were there we visited St Michaels Cathedral. A Large catholic cathedral that is beautifully decorated inside. A television tower that is 440m above sea level, and we took a cable car from the base down to ground level again. A former German communications building that looks like a set of Spaceballs and also a beer factory- where we sacked off the tour for being too expensive (£2)
and instead headed to the bar where for £1.50 you could buy 1.5 litre jugs of fresh Tsingtao- In our opinions that represented a much better investment. We also managed to see a little of the nightlife- Dave now has a new Alias; David Stdices, as the bar managed to mess up his membership card. We also managed to get invited to a house party for someones birthday that we had only ever met
for 10 seconds. It was good house party but unfortunately some of the people there- sad to admit it but they were the english - were too annoying so we left after a few hours, but we'd already managed to have a free meal,free punch and free beers from the night, so I think we were quite successful!

The rest of the time was spent taking in some of the beautiful scenary and relaxing on the beaches. It was a great way to spend a few days and we all felt alot better for it- wish we could have stayed a lot longer!