Last Full Day of Touring Shandong

2019 Summer Trip to Asia

September 9, 2019 --  Weifang and Qingdao, Shandong, China

I started to have a little stomach problem last night. Fortunately, it wasn't too bad and that might have caused my not recording or remembering what happened that evening. I was just hoping that it's not going to get any worse today since we will have a whole day of touring with the drive back to Jingdao. It is also our final full-day on this tour of Shandong.

The hotel we stayed at the night before. I have no memories of it except the look on this photo.

Yangjiabu Folk Culture Village, Weifang, Shandong

I noticed that there are villages or districts with many family names in Weifang, like Leejiabu, Chenjiabu, or Wang Village, etc. Apparently, Yangjiabu is a major tourist attraction in the city. We were curious to find out what this is all about.

Quite an impressive gateway.

The Three Fairies--Fu, Lu, Shuo.

South Gate

Pagoda in the center of the park. We climbed up to the top for the view, quite nice!

Some kites, calligraphy, and paintings inside the pagoda.

Going further inside the park, there's the Kite Museum back there.

I believe they hold kite festivals here and it's suppose to be a worldwide event with lots of participants and spectators from all around the world.

I thought this was a very special wall.

One of the kites inside the museum but we found out that there's no photography there so this was the only picture I had. The many shapes and sizes of kites in the museum was just amazing!

There is also a beautiful park in the back.

Very pretty!

An ancient tree.

Post Office from the Qing Dynasty.

There was also demonstration of color printing the old fashion way.

All in all, this was an interesting stop.

(After I worked on half of this post yesterday, it happened that there was a travel show on TV about Yangjiabu and other important sites in Weifang. Quite interesting!)

Qingdao, Shandong

After the stop at Yangjiabu Folk Culture Village, we went back to Qingdao where we had the rest of the day visiting some more sights in the city.

First thing we did after getting back to the city was to take a boat ride around the harbor. It was a nice excursion after a few days staying inland.

The boat tour was about an hour. It didn't go far, just making a round at Qingdao Wan (Bay of Qingdao).

That was Xiaoyushan.

I was happy that we had a chance to enjoy some seafood dumplings at this popular dumpling restaurant named Chuangeyu Dumplings. Shandong is famous for their fish dumplings and I have read that there are several branches of this dumpling restaurants all over the city with pretty good reviews. We were at the one on Ju Tang Xia Road near the oceanfront.

A bowl of popcorn to snack on while waiting for the dumplings.

I don't remember what the timer was for, probably the time they allowed the wait on the dumplings.

Both of these dumplings were very good!

Zhanqiao Pier

Zhanqiao Pier is one of the important sights in Qingdao, which was said to be the very first wharf built in the city. There is a pavilion named Huilan Ge at the end of the pier that stretched 440 meters out into the water. Huilan Ge is featured on the labels of the local Tsingtao beer.

Zhanjiao and the Huilan Ge behind us.

Lots of visitors on the pier.

That's the Xiao Qing Dao (Little Qingdao) with the lighthouse on the other side of the bay.

Busy place. I wonder where those people with suitcases are going?

The beach near Zhanqiao Pier.

Qingdao Music Hall near Zhanjiao Pier.

Then we had a brief visit at the historic Jiaozhou Post Office that was built in 1901.

At the very top of the building is a cozy little bookstore/coffee shop which I found it to be quite unique. 

There were other more educational exhibits about the history of this building and the progress of the postal services. I just did not take any photos of these other displays.

Qingdao Museum of the Former German Governor's Residence

This is a very unique building in bright yellow and brownish red color. The architecture and the garden in front pretty much says it all. This building has a history that links to a foreign country. Sure enough, this was built when the Germans occupied Qingdao for the governor in 1904~1906. Everything inside still shows the lavish designs, furnishings and decorations of the era but unfortunately photos were not allowed inside. It was a self-guided tour for us, but I believe they had audio guides available also. It was quite an experience going through the beautifully decorated rooms in this building, including the kitchens and maids quarters. They also had a video show about the history of this place at the bottom floor (basement). I personally quite enjoyed our visit here.

This could be anywhere in Europe.

There must be a reason why I took a photo of this particular section of the house but I don't remember now.

Entrance to the main hall.

Qingdao Beer (Tsingtao) Brewery Museum

Well, what can I say. This has to be the one place you must visit when in Qingdao. With the German occupation, they made sure that European influences would take place in this city, including beer brewing. That was how Qingdao Beer started. The self-guided tour was quite structured, with signage in English and Chinese all along. Some people swear to it that the glass of beer they let you sample is the freshest and tastiest beer in the world. So much I knew about beer, I couldn't even finish mine! Still, a fun place to visit. I was actually surprised to find out that this museum is right in the city. There are many seafood restaurants around this museum for people who wants to enjoy more beer than the ones they got on the tour.

The museum and the seafood restaurants right across from it.

Entrance to the beer museum.

Front of the ticket.

$30 RMB for senior citizens, which is half of the regular price.

Going inside for the tour.

Museum entrance

"The Three Delights for Qingdao residents: drinking beer, eating clams, and swimming in the sea."

Some of the Tsingtao beer products.

A picture of the iconic Zhanqiao pavilion is on the label.

Beer sampling half way through the tour.

This is a room where you go in and experience how a drunk person would feel like. I thought that was quite interesting!

At the end of the tour, there is a store, some cafes, and another sample of beer available.

Exiting the tour at another end of the museum.

Pedestrian Street

Our final destination for this tour was the pedestrian street in Qingdao. I don't really remember the name of this street, but I think it was called Taidong Buxingjie. We will have to take care of our dinner here also.

The pedestrian street down there.

Beautifully painted apartment buildings.

One of the several department stores.

We found what we wanted for dinner, Qingfeng Baozi (steamed dumplings), which is famous in Beijing.

Not many customers.

A bowl of wonton,

and some baozi.

They were OK, but nothing really special.

After dinner we just walked and shopped. Yes, we did buy some accessories for our cellphones.

Pullman Qingdao Airport

We had a long drive out to the airport area where we would spend the night at the Pullman Qingdao Airport. I suppose because this hotel is very close to the airport and would have been convenient to transport visitors there the next day. But, now that we were the only two on this tour, it really didn't matter. We would stay the night and then we will have the driver take us back to the downtown area tomorrow morning. Of course, we would have to pay extra for the ride but we didn't mind as long as he was willing to do so.

Just like all the hotels that we have stayed in on this tour, it was nice and clean with comfortable beds. There was just one problem which I will explain tomorrow.

"Better a poor man whose walk is blameless than a rich man whose ways are perverse."   -- Proverbs 28:6