Day 5 & 6: Qingdao and the Misinformation Centre

Day 5
My threshhold for inconvenience and discomfort is reasonably high. Except if I'm hungry, dirty, tired, need to pee or any combination of the above, then the threshhold is compromised and the dirty little tanty-warriors storm the palace.

We had originally arranged to stay with Matt's cousin's wife's family (yes one of those) in Qingdao, but a few days before our arrival, Mama-san rather inconsiderately slipped a disc in her back and was confined to hospital. So we had nowhere to stay. Armed with a few suggestions in the Lonely Planet, I approached the "Information Centre" next to the station.

I asked if I could book accommodation. The girl (who spoke survival English although it proudly advertises that English is spoken) pointed to a hotel in one of her books. I asked if there was anything else? She said no. I then pointed to one of the places in the Lonely Planet (mental note to suggest to Lonely Planet to write the chinese characters for the addresses) and she nodded, made a couple of calls, then wrote what I thought was the address for the place I'd pointed out, on a piece of paper.

The creepy male manager in the background was barking orders to her in Chinese and I got a bit suspect, but I checked with her twice that the place I wanted (which was quite convenient and only about 4 kms away) was what she'd written, and she assured me in dodgy English that, yes, this was the case.

So we caught a cab, headed in the right direction, and kept heading. And heading. And heading. At about the 10 km mark, we tried to get the cabbie to go back into town, but he shook his head and doggedly took us to whatever the hell it said on that infernal piece of paper. We kept driving east, by this time we were trying to get him to let us out, but he wouldn't. He kept on driving. At the 20 km mark, after a few stops along the way to ask his fellow cabbies where the place on the paper was, we turned into a hotel in the middle of nowhere, on the coast, butt-humping the industrial port area of eastern Qingdao. Not happy Jan.

The cabbie then tried to shortchange Matt and kept shoving the receipt at me, even though I didn't want it. I snapped. The heinous threshhold warriors had arrived and I started to rant. I may have overreacted. It is very possible. I just hate being taken advantage of simply because we're tourists. From a hawker I'd just brush it off, but coming from a so-called english-speaking "Information Centre" I was pissed.

We finally got another cab back to the place I'd pointed out, which was full, so we admitted defeat and said to the cabbie, "take us wherever the hell is good", so he did. To the Oceanwide Elite Hotel on Taiping Lu.

We bargained a good rate (I didn't mind bargaining with the large hotels) for a 4 star place right on #6 beach. I had a shower. I slept. Life was suddenly good.

Qingdao is quite a nice seaside town, very popular for wedding photos on the beach (we saw about 10 couples posing for photos along #2 beach) and different from other Chinese cities because of the ocean (ergo fresh seafood which Matt was very happy to pick out of a tank for his dinner) and the german architecture sprinkled about the town. Its vibe seemed a bit lacklustre though.

Maybe we were disappointed that we couldn't catch up with Coco's family. We tried (the uber-helpful Mike from the hotel tried calling twice with no answer) but no pancake...

Day 6
The next day, we made the taoist pilgrimage (being, ahem, taoists and all) to Lao Shan, a famous Taoist mountain retreat 40 kms north-west of Qingdao. There is a cable car up to the top of the mountain from which you climb through caves to reach the summit.

Of course, just our luck, out-of-season it doesn't operate, so Matt and I walked half-way up the mountain. It was nice. It was a mountain. Not unlike the mountains you see down in Tassie, if you ignore the whopping chinese characters etched into the rocks. We didn't come by any caves. We left. Returned to Qingdao. Spent 3 hours killing time in KFC before our night train. It is what it is.

Kinki's Daily Dose... Travelling Companions

I had no idea why Matt and I made such good travelling companions. We have quite radically different personalities, and I snap at the most trivial of things when the threshhold warriors are in town.

But today, we had a revelation. We balance each other really well. I blow up at difficult things Matt deals with patiently, but I get over things just as quickly, so when the post-incident blues get to Matt, about an hour later, I'm back up again, which then brings him up. Like Yin and Yang. Rhett and Scarlett. Starsky and Hutch.

Kinki's Tip of the Day

Book ahead accommodation for Qingdao if you don't speak Chinese and were thinking of relying on the Information Centre outside the station.