Pullman Hotel, Intercontinental Hotel, and Light Show in Qingdao

2019 Summer Trip to Asia

September 10, 2019 --  Hotels and Light Show, Qingdao, Shandong, China

Pullman Qingdao Airport

We had a relaxing morning at the Pullman Hotel after breakfast while waiting for the driver to pick us up. This will be the end of our official tour of Shandong. We will stay another day in town on our own. Our driver turned out to have a transportation service of his own and he was willing to take us to our hotel and then take us to the airport the next day. All for a reasonable charge. It was good that we had someone we trusted while on the road.

This hotel was used by different airlines for crew members also.

Serving good decent breakfast.

Statue of Mao at the main reception hall of the hotel.

We decided to take a walk around the hotel after breakfast.

Street behind the hotel building.

Some more apartments and shops near the hotel.

Front of hotel Pullman.

Across the street is the small Baisha River.

Distance between the hotel and the river.

Baishahe Road along the river.

Back to the hotel, getting ready to leave.

This was the little problem that I was talking about.

We could not figure out why they had these stairs on the same floor. Probably because our room is on the back wing of the hotel that may be an added on. There are these steps that we had to haul our luggage up and down to get to the elevator. Making it very difficult when checking in and out of our hotel room.

And there was not another set of elevator on our side of the rooms.

These are just little things that sometimes pops up when traveling in China. Something that could be over-looked or thought that it was no big deal. But it would be a big problem for disabled guests for being non-accessible.

Everything looked fine except those steps.

Intercontinental Qingdao

Our driver was prompt to pick us up at Pullman and dropped us off at the Intercontinental late morning. I picked this hotel for the extra night because we had an annual free night from the IHG Group and also I wanted to spend a little more time here near the May 4th Square. I have read about the nightly light show around the square and it's suppose to be something incredible. 

Intercontinental is an all around 5-star hotel.

Well-appointed and nicely setup guest room.

A walk-in dressing room.

View from our room, more like a side way view.

Welcome fruit plate as platinum member.

We were tired from the week of busy touring so we spent the afternoon just relaxing in our hotel room. We weren't even hungry for lunch since we had such a big breakfast this morning and the plate of fruit was a good snack to carry us through. At around 4:00, we were ready to go find dinner and explore the area.

This was the view from the elevator bank.

Another sign for the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center around the corner of the hotel.

Haisense Plaza

There is a huge shopping mall not far from the hotel and we wanted to see if we could find dinner there. I think this was the Haisense Plaza with many high-end stores like Gucci, Armani, Valentino, and Starbucks inside. There is also a food court and a market.

 Doesn't this look good?! Black pepper steak pot rice.

We found dinner here!

This restaurant is famous for the clay pot rice. Here is MOR's set with fish stew.

I thought this was so cute! All the utensils can be found inside the drawer under the table.

My set with the black pepper steak. This was a delicious meal that I wouldn't mind coming back to.

Reasonable prices for the food.

Very clean place with the worker cleaning that whole time.

This is like a fast food franchise type of restaurant in China.

The mall and Intercontinental in the background.

Haisense Mall

Walking down towards May 5th Square on Aomen (Macau) Road.

May 4th Square

The eye-catching bright red sculpture of May 5th Square.

This is a huge plaza by the oceanfront with a nice promenade. The sculpture is the main attraction during the day but at night, the light show here is just amazing! We were not sure what time the light show starts so we just found a place near the sculpture and waited.

At 6:30, the light of the sculpture was on, and the show began at 7:00.

Absolutely incredible! All the buildings in the area were part of the show.

As we were walking back to the hotel, we could still see the lights.

Even the pier at the Olympic Sailing Center was lit with colorful lights.

The mall again.

And the hotel.

Back inside the Intercontinental.

This must be a popular venue for weddings.

Reception area.

Qingdao at night.

Night view from our room.

I was happy that I chose this hotel for the night. It is in a good location where we didn't have to deal with transportation and were able to just leisurely walk around. The May 4th Square was a little crowded during the light show but manageable. There seemed to be many activities further down on the other side of the promenade but we didn't feel like getting into the crowded area. I would love to come back and spend more time just wandering around.

"The sun will no more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you, for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory."   -- Isaiah 60:19