QingDao

I arrived really early in Qingdao. This woman approached me and said did I want a hotel so I ended up getting a free lift to the hotel Well the hotel was interesting. I wnet to bed straight away as I was so tired from the train journey. I got up that afternoon and walked around looking for a restaurant. Finally found one but realised I had left my money in the hotel. So I explained in signlanguage that I had forgotten my money and ran off. I came back with the money and my order was served. I went to bed early but not early enough to miss the cockroaches scurrying around the bathroom and the bedroom carpet. Fabulous. Next day I walked around looking for the German area. Qingdoa was colonised by the Germans for a while, which influenced the local architecture. I must have walked for miles. I even managed to see the two churches, one catholic and one protestant, in the town. I climbed up to the bell tower and it was so like climbing up Shandon steeple in Cork. There are some lovely German villas and some really nice beaches. I even got to put my feet in the sea. It was so lovely to smell the sea and walk along the beach. There were loads of Chinese on the beach, mostly male in their bathing trunks. I had a grand view.
As I was walking back to my hotel, this young girl stopped me and asked me to stand next to her so her friends could take a photo of both of us. It was really funny,. Then of course I had to have a photo with the friend. There are photos of me throughtout China with various people whom I have no clue of. It still amuses me how much they find us a novelty.

That evening I really struggled to find a ticket office to buy my train ticket out of Qingdao. So I went to the train station and luckily the person behind the information desk could speak a bit of English and she wrote on a piece of paper the time and train number etc. So I went off to fight for my place in the melee that calls itself a queue and actually got the ticket for the train. Wey Hey! Result!

I had a hard seat ticket. Which meant that I had to sit in the cheapest train seats. However, it was only for a few hours. I got on the train for Tai'an. Again the locals where highly curious as to the Laowai in their midst, and were tapping their friends to look at me. I got to have lunch by seeing what the locals bought and it was satisfying. I even got ot buy a few pairs of socks. It is amazing the train staff go up and down the carriages selling socks, food, jewellry. It is a whole markent on the train. Out of boredom people will look and sometimes buy. I did. Well, as I said a few pairs of socks but the ones I brought with me are ruined and have holes in the toes. And these are super dooper ones as I saw the whole demonstration of their durability.