Xiamen to Qingdao

2019 Summer Trip to Asia

September 4, 2019 -- Xiamen, Fujian, China

Our tour of Xiamen officially ended this morning after breakfast. We are staying an extra day so that when we leave Xiamen we can make a smooth connection with the first day of our tour in Qingdao when we get there without having problems at a new city. We had nothing planned for this day so it was just a relaxing day to recuperate from the busy past few days. I would have done some sightseeing on our own if we were near the downtown area but being so far away I did not feel like taking a taxi. 

Views from our hotel room, basically the same as a couple of nights before except a few floors higher up so we were able to see further out.

Ridong Park right outside of the hotel.

After breakfast we decided that it would be nice to walk around the park.

It's a huge, nicely developed park with walking trails and exercise equipment.

There were people doing their morning exercise or just relaxing inside the different parts of the park.

Cute sculptures of "Pulling the Radish".

Our hotel.

Ridong Best Western Hotel which also has a huge entertainment center.

About this hotel, the only plus here is this beautiful park. Otherwise, I would not recommend anyone to stay here since it's not in the best location. If you cannot speak Mandarin, it can be a problem because this hotel seemed to mainly used by tour groups and local businesses. 

Reception counters at the hotel. They seemed to always turned the lights off during the day.

For lunch, we walked out to the main street again and found another restaurant that looked interesting. This one is famous for their duck soup and that was what we ordered.

With a plate of stir-fried rice noodle.

The restaurant.

Now I can't recall what we did that afternoon or what we had for dinner. Probably just resting inside our hotel room and packing. We were ready to move on.

2019 Summer Trip to Asia

September 5, 2019 --  Xiamen to Qingdao, Shandong, China

Our plane from Xiamen to Qingdao was in the early afternoon. Mr. Lee picked us up at the hotel and safely dropped us off at the International Airport. I felt that I know this airport pretty well by now so it was OK that we were there on our own. Only this time we had to go through the domestic section of the airport which is just next to the International side. They were basically similar except it was a little more crowded.

At the boarding gate after we checked in and through security at Xiamen  Gaoqi International Airport.

A little bit more crowded.

Arrived at Qingdao in the late afternoon.

I have done a lot of research of Qingdao before the trip, especially on how to get to the hotels using the airport buses. It turned out to be more complicated than I wanted and that was why we decided to just join a tour there that had a beginning day matching our flight schedule. With that, the tour would pick us up from the airport which eliminates the trouble of finding our own transportation. This worked out really well for us. After this tour, we would stay one more day on our own and work our way back to the airport ourselves. 

This tour is designated as a no shopping tour, so we did not have to worry about time and money wasted on shopping stops. The itinerary looked good and we will go to places where we had in mind. We have never been to Shandong before so this would be an interesting trip for us.

What surprised us was that we were told once again, when we were picked up by our guide, that we were the only two guests on this tour. Wow! How incredible is that! These tours for oversea Chinese are usually very popular and most of the time they are filled to the brim. No matter, we felt lucky being on another private tour here.

We were dropped off at the Gloria Plaza Hotel not too far from the airport and we would have the rest of the day free until being picked up again in the morning. By now, I am not feeling too well, and have been coughing quite a bit. Probably coming down with a cold or something, so having the remaining day to rest was music to my ears.

Comfortable hotel room. A step up from the Ridong Best Western.

The view from our hotel window.

Buildings across the street, they all seemed pretty new.

Beautiful sunset.

Saw this posted about buffet dinner at the hotel for $88 RMB, not a bad deal. We inquired about this at the entrance to the restaurant which seemed very busy and was told that it was available. Except that they were having a lot of guests as groups that day. They may not be serving all their regular offerings if we don't mind. We went ahead and made reservation because we didn't know if we would be able to find anything nearby for dinner.

We just wanted to check out the surrounding area of the hotel.

A huge hotel building.

At the crossroad right outside the hotel.

We didn't find much around and as I was not feeling too well. We decided to just go back in and forget about exploring.

When our time came for dinner, we went downstairs to the buffet restaurant. It was certainly very crowded and it was difficult to even find a table for ourselves. One of the waiters asked a patron to move over and share a table with his friends so we could have his table. Thank goodness, it worked without any problems. There was enough food being served as you can see.

Drink was included so we shared a bottle of the famous local Tsingtao (Qingdao) beer.

We are not beer drinkers but, do what the Romans...

They even had steak!

This plate was brought to us by the manager. He was afraid that we won't have enough food as we had to 'fight' the others to get food.

This manager was really kind and took care of us as we were enjoying our dinner. After finding out that I was not feeling well, he asked the kitchen to make a pitcher of hot "Coke with ginger and lemon" for me to take back to our room so that I can have it throughout the night. What a nice gentleman!

A pitcher of special remedy for my ailment.

Just hope that I will be better in the morning.

"Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act."   -- Proverbs 3:27