Qingdao

I spent my past week in the ocean side city of Qingdao. Qingdao is famous for the three B's: Beaches, Beer (birthplace of Tsingtao beer) and Bavarian architecture (it was run by the Germans for 20 years at the turn of the last century, hence the beer). For much of our time there, the weather was cloudy and the city seemed dirty; we wondered why it was so highly touted and why we came. Then the last day the sun came out and as we strolled along its seemingly endless ocean side walk, getting a wicked awesome sunburn (its quite a feat to do in China), the city revealed all its reputed beauty.

The most 'German' thing was the old embassy, which apparently cost so much that the German Chancellor fired the local governor when he received the bill. It was a little odd walking out of dirty China into a clean, kept and old luxury home.

When the sun came out, Qingdao was as pretty an ocean side city of 2 million people you could ask for. With over 6 beaches and clean(ish) blue(ish) water, the city really is a little escape from the gigantic cities in China. By building a long ocean side park, the city is a lovely place to stroll and will only become nicer as it is slated to host the Olympic sailing events. We walked around the near complete facilities, and they certainly are pulling out all the stops. The statue pictured is a bit of modern art (China doesn't usually do good art, but I give them credit for this one).

After wondering why I'd come to a bleak, dirty city for the first few days, Qingdao turned out to be a great escape from Shanghai once the weather turned nice. Hard to believe I 'escape' to a city twice the size of Boston.