Qingdao and Jinan, Shandong

2019 Summer Trip to Asia

September 6, 2019 --  Xiamen to Qingdao, Shandong, China

This is our first time visiting Qingdao, Shandong and I think I fell in love with this beautiful city!

Qingdao is in the eastern coast of China right off the Yellow Sea with the same latitude as Korea and Japan. Having been occupied by the Germans between 1898~1914, there are a lot of western influences both in architectures and living style in this city. The famous local beer "Tsingtao" Beer was founded here by the Germans in 1903 and a visit to the beer factory is a must-do for all visitors coming here. 

The city is interesting in a special way, with old westernized buildings in many parts of the city and then there are skyscrapers in the commercial district, all being attractive in their own ways. It is also an important sea port and a major naval base.

Our 6-day tour is basically four full days, not counting the day we arrive before the tour start and the last day which the tour ends in the morning. Today, we will spend half a day here and then take the long drive to the city of Jinan. Then visiting Taishan Mountain in Taian on one day, with a short stop when we past through the city of Weifan and then back to Qingdao on the last day. 

Skyscrapers in the newly developed commercial district near May 4th Square.

Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center

The first attraction we visited this morning was the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center where competition events was held here in the 2008 Summer Olympics. Most other sporting events were held in Beijing but the sailing events here. A perfect choice at this port city with a beautiful ocean.

The Olympic Park and the Sailing Center

It is a nice walk along the promenade through this area.

The "Torch"

This is an excellent place for a relaxing stroll, even on this hot summer day.

Tour boats that takes people out for a ride around the harbor.

The Sailing Museum further down.

The Intercontinental Hotel is walking distance from the sailing center. We will be staying there on our last night in the city after the tour ends officially.

I picked this hotel to spend the night on our own because of the location. 

First day with our guide. Other than the guide we also had a driver on this trip.

Our private vehicle for the tour.

Badaguan

Badaguan is a scenic area well-known for the villas in this city. Badaguan means "the eight big gateways (eight passes) of the Great Wall of China. Here, there are more than 200 old buildings that were built in the 1930s of European style houses found common in Russia, England, France, Germany, America, Japan, Denmark, etc. that scattered around in this upscale residential area right next to the beach. The names of these eight gateways were used on some of these streets in this area.

Tree-lined streets with...

...old-fashion street lamps.

Princess Villa, one of the more well-known ones. We did not go inside any of these villas. Some of these are opened to the public for an entrance fee. We were told that there are really nothing special inside. These entrance fees run around $10 RMB per person at each site.

Nice residential area but we really couldn't see much from the outside.

A tourist map of the area with brief description.

Number Two Bathing Beach which is right next to the Badaguan Residential area.

Near the beach stood the Huashi Lou, a granite castle-like building where Presidenst Chiang Kai-Shek and his wife Soong Mei-Ling stayed when they were in Qingdao.

Our guide took a lot of pictures for us on this trip.

Pisa Tower?

A closer look at the Huashi Building.

Zhongshan Park

Zhongshan Park is a huge park filled with many trees and flowers in the middle of the city. There are plenty of cherry blossoms in Spring, but of course we were there in the summer, so no cherry blossoms. It was nice just walking around this huge park even though we only just scratched a little on its surface.

Main entrance of the park.

One of the fountains...

being built.

Xiao Yu Shan

"Little Fish Hill" is a small park up on the hill with a view of the sea and the city in the older residential part of town. There is a pagoda up there and if you climb to the top of the pagoda you will have an expansive view of the area. There was hardly anyone up there and it was nice to enjoy the place in peace and quiet.

That long strip of pier is the famous Zhan Bridge (Zhanqiao). Lots of visitors there.

Nice houses!

Signal Mountain

Number One Bathing Beach

After the trip to Xiaoyushan, our guide and driver discussed about where they should take us for lunch and finally decided on their local cuisine, Pork Ribs Soup with rice. The set came with a pot of slow-cooked pork ribs soup, a bowl of rice and a dish of vegetable. 

The arrangements between this tour and the tour in Xiamen were different in certain ways. On this tour, the hotels we stayed at were better but they did not make meal arrangements ahead of time like the Xiamen tour did. It seemed that they would just randomly picked something nearby that fits the $30 RMB per meal budget. I can totally understand it must be difficult to make arrangements feeding the two of us instead of a big tour group but it was unsettling to just go and eat at a random place. A couple of days later I got in trouble with stomach problems probably eating unclean food at one of these places.

After lunch, we took the long drive to Jinan and both of us took the opportunity to rest up on this long distance drive. By the time we woke up we were miles away in Jinan and time for dinner.

Furong Ancient Street, Jinan

This ancient street in the city is more like the food alley with plenty of local snacks and food served by shops and eateries that lined the narrow pedestrian street. Dinner would be on our own today so we were let free and supposedly meet back with the guide at a certain time. Let's see what we could find!

Entering the narrow food alley.

This ancient street has a history of over 2,000 years.

All the shops are either eateries or souvenir shops.

This "You Shuen" is a local Jinan snack which we have never had before. We did buy some to try. They are deep-fried pastries with different sweet fillings inside.

"You Shuen"

"Furong Spring" ,one of the 72 famous springs in China, right in the middle of the alley.

The end of the alley.

Just to be safe, we decided on some hot dumplings in soup.

They were actually pretty good!

Grand Mercure Hotel, Jinan, Shandong

Then we were brought to our hotel for the night, the Grand Mercure. A nice hotel in the city. 

It's always nice to be able to rest in a good hotel room after a day of touring.

I was actually feeling a lot better. I wonder if it was the hot "Coke" remedy that did the job?

"Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds."   -- Hosea 6:1