QINGDAO

From May 20th through the 22nd, we went to Qingdao (pronounced Chingdow) which is located slightly to the east of us.  Qingdao is the largest city in the Shandong Province with eight million people.  It is also one of the largest port cities in China.

 We took the bullet train and it only took us 2 1/2 hours to get there.  This was the most comfortable trip I've taken in ages.  Regular Economy seats weren't available, so we had to take the first-class seats. There was about a foot of room in front of our knees, and the seats reclined beautifully.  The best part was the price -- $22 one way!  So cheep!  We are sold on this mode of travel! 
Our first views of the city were very impressive.  It's a very nice city!  We were wishing that we'd been assigned to teach in Qingdao.  Maybe if we come back for a second stint we'll request Qingdao.

The second great thing about this trip was our accommodations. We stayed in the Old Observatory Youth Hostel.  It is located at the top of a hill, so our view of the city was fabulous!  The price was amazing -- $30.00 a night, and they even gave us free food!  It was clean, we had hot water -- on the 2nd night : ) and it was very quaint -- in the "youth hostel" way.  (Magazine pictures pasted on the walls, daises and sunflowers painted on the walls, etc.)
We came with eight friends -- other BYU China English Teachers that we work and go to church with in Jinan.  Here's a picture of the bunch of us.

L to R: Kay Miner, Luci and Morgan Jones, Gwen Bardsley, Sue, Linda Gold, Jay Thelin

We took a boat ride along the coast to get a really good view of the old town area.  It was a little cold on Saturday morning and  we got a little wind-blown, but had a good time!  The bus tour after the boat tour was fun too.  They took us up to Signal Hill -- where there was another observatory.  The views were great!. 

Signal Hill Observatory

Dave and I left the bus tour to take in the Governor's Mansion.  The Germans occupied this area starting 1897 and built many of the old buildings in town, including the mansion.  You can definitely see a lot of European influence in the city.  Many of the Chinese leaders, including Chairman Mao lived here.

Governor's Mansion

The best part of our time in Qingdao was our time with Ronald Juan, one of my (Sue's) students, and his family.  Ron met us as we finished our tour of the Mansion.  He showed us around the city in his car as we drove towards the booming financial district in town.  

Ron is an oral surgeon, who is preparing to trave to America to be a visiting scholar.  In China, in order to be successful, and be promoted properly, it's required by the government to have some experience in a foreign country in your field of work.  There's a great medical university in Michigan that Ronald is aiming for.  He plans to make the year-long trip in September.  

     Ron, Vivian and Tina, his wife and ten year old daughter took us to dinner at a wonderful sea-food restaurant near the site where the 2008 Olympic Sailing events took place.  We had clams, spring rolls, sauteed abalone on a clam shell, a wonderful celery salad, Chinese dumplings and several other dishes that escape me right now.  It was a great meal.

Before our meal, we walked down the "Darling Pier" to enjoy the view and fresh air.  It was fun to talk and get to know each other a little better.

On Sunday, we met with the Qingdao branch.  They rent a villa (big home) just off the golf course and on the beach!  Wow, what a view!  Half the branch are Koreans and the other half are westerners, so the meetings are presented in English, and then translated into Korean.  (sentence by sentence.)  As you can see in the map above, Qingdao is very close to Korea.  They had a "linger-longer" after the meetings, and we enjoyed the visiting as well as the food.

From church we went to the Train Depot, and had a relaxing ride back to Jinan.  Another fun, adventurous weekend in China. : )