Qingdao (5th Trip)

After staying 2 consecutive weeks in Yantai, we needed a new trip. It's my 5^th trip in China which was during the weekend of 30^th-31^st of July. We went to Qingdao in Shandong Provice which is 3 hours by bus from Yantai. Qingdao is Shandong’s most famous city. Qingdao was a colony of Germany and there is still a big deal of German touch to it. VolksWagen is popular there as Toyota is in UAE. Qingdao is famous for:

• Zhan Pier
• The biggest beer producer in China (Tsingtao Beer) which was built by Germans
• The widest sand beaches in China
• The 2008 Olympics Sailing Center
• The longest sea-bridge in the world
• Laohu Shan (The Cherries Mountain I went to on the 1^st trip)
• Parks, aquariums and museums

Zhan Pier

Kid fishing at Zhan Pier

Well, the good side of the trip was that it is the only trip in which all the 5 of us (foreigners) went together.Although Qingdao seems to be the busiest city in Shandong Province with flight and cruise connection to all of China, it is not a special place for real distinctive tourism. It is quite hot and things are far apart from each other with no real unique aspect. For us it was actually as we say in Arabic, “smell but don’t taste”. This phrase actually sounds weird when I try to explain it to others here! We actually knew all the locations of places to visit but being 5 people, it was hard to settle on common grounds. At some points we reached locations and just looked from outside. Time was also limited during our weekend and traffic was jammed.

On the rockside of the sea

Church in Qingdao. They were photo-shooting there

We had a main mission to accomplish in this trip; to reach and have lunch at Diner 22, a famous Western style restaurant that was a little far from the center of the city. The food there was a relief, we never had such American style food since months!

At Diner 22

The second day we went to the best beach in Qingdao. The water was cold but still deserved a refreshing swim! The beach was so long, still not as fascinating as Jumeirah’s Beach or Sour’s Beach in Lebanon.

Gymnasium at the beach!

Olympics Sailing Center

Run Run Run!! Around China there are infinite statues of anything you would think of

After getting back from Qingdao and looking at the pictures we took, I realized that what we actually really accomplished is taking pictures of a lot of food, especially all the weird kinds of seafood and scorpions and insects on sticks! 

Food Market

Since there are a lot of food pictures, some really delicious-looking and some really disgusting, there will be separate posts about them and other food related issues.

Tai'an, Qufu and Jinan (4th Trip)

Youssef’s 4^th trip and my 1^st in China (9^th to 12^th July); a four-day-long journey through 3 different cities in Shandong province that are an hour away from each other, and around 8 hours (by train) and 4 hours (by bus) away from Yantai . The cities are:

• Tai’an (Saturday-Sunday): where China’s most popular mountain is located (TaiShan). Height: 1545m
• Qufu (Sunday-Monday): hometown of Confucius, one of mankind’s famous teachers and philosophers in history as Aristotle and Socrates
• Jinan (Tuesday): the capital of Shandong, and where the 1000 Buddha Mountain is located.

At Taishan

As Dorothee, Youssef and I left for Tai’an to climb Taishan, we were determined to make it to the summit. We were of course met by disconcerting comments from our colleagues about how excruciatingly difficult the 1545m climb would be. But that did not dwindle down our high morale. We even refused to give in to the discomforting words in the Lonely Planet…”Be ready for strenuous Stairmasters work out.”

We left for Tai’an at around eight in the morning using China’s rail transportation system. Yes, we were consumed by sheer excitement at the notion of travelling in the train, like petty twelve year olds who were going for their first roller coaster ride. For Youssef it was the 1^st time by train. Not that I had not traveled by train before. In India, intercity travelling is largely done by the railways and I have my relatives scattered all over the vast country. Actually, it was the idea of travelling in China; a self sustained world within a world. Our journey was around eight long hours through the vast stretches of wheat and paddy rice fields and countless tiny towns towards the deep west region of the Shandong province. Most of the journey went with us slumbering on our berths because we had to muster and save all the strength for the climb. But there were occasional times when I got down to the nearest window and looked out at passing cities, wondering how quickly this country has developed.

Along the Railway

We reached Tai’an at around 6pm and walked towards Youth International Hostel. On our way, we dropped by a Chinese fast food restaurant. I don’t recall its name. As a tourist, you can never recall names of Chinese restaurant, probably because you don’t know how to decipher Chinese characters. But the food we were served was truly delectable. It’s exciting how, though seldom, Chinese cuisine can surprise you! Maybe we were too hungry then. But that meal was one of the best meals we had on our trip. It was

Shanghai & Wuzhen (3rd Trip)

In the 3^rd weekend of my stay in China (24-26 June), I went to my 3^rd trip. The trip was to Shanghai and Wuzhen. Shanghai is one of the biggest 3 Chinese cities which include Hong Kong and Beijing. Wuzhen is a water village (like Venice) 1.5 hours away from Shanghai by bus.

Shanghai is known to be the most metropolitan city in China, while Beijing is considered the capital of culture and history. We left Yantai at 9:30pm on Friday on a sleeper bus – a bus with all beds! It was the first time I know these buses actually existed. Although the beds were tight, the journey (around 10 hours) was convenient because we slept on the bus overnight and reached Shanghai at 7:30am Saturday (it saves you from staying at a hotel). We went and checked-in early at the hostel (40 Yuan per night) which was almost like a hotel. Hostels are really convenient and they make travel and trips much easier and extremely affordable.

As soon as we put our stuff in the room, we stated wandering around Shanghai. It was cloudy and drizzling, which lowered the known heat of Shanghai. We actually visited almost all touristic attractions on Saturday which included:

1. People’s Park
2. The French Concession (Looks and feels like Al Hamra street in Beirut – it is a shopping district)
3. Ju Gardens and The Old City (Had Temple architecture and a market place)
4. The Bund (the famous walkway along Huangpu river where all skyscrapers can be seen)
5. The tunnel at The Bund passing under Huangpu river (the lighting inside it was amazing)
6. IKEA – So typical, exactly like the one in festival city. The icecream is for 1 Yuan!
7. The Maglev train – reached to more than 500km/hr – operates at maximum of 432km/hr

Chinese Market

In Old City

In Old City Market

Ju Garden

What I liked about Shanghai is that it merges between the modern metropolitan life of Dubai with all the skyscrapers and nice roads, and the social lively life of Beirut, with people filling the streets everywhere and with a bit of greenery and nature. Yet although it is so

PengLai & ChangDao (2nd Trip)

In the second weekend which was June 18^th, Lauren, Ana and I went to PéngLái which is a coastal city that is around 1 hour far away by bus from Yantai where we live. Beside PéngLái is ChàngDǎo (Dǎo means island) which is an island 40 minutes away by ferry.

In Penglai we went to the ‘Eight Immortals’ temple, which has monuments of the eight legendary immortals. It was the first time I see how the Chinese are influenced by legendary superstitions. At every place you visit in China, you can notice Dragons, superstitious mighty Tortoises (the 2^nd iconic creature I noticed in China), Buddha statues and many other weird-to-us legendary aspects of the Chinese culture. I cannot say much at this point because it needs good deal of reading to know why the Chinese value these.  It is always nice to see how different people can have so distinct beliefs. Hopefully I will dedicate a whole post about this later on when I acquire more information.

The 8 Immortals Temple

Rounded Gate. An aspect of the Chinese architecture

The Tortoise, the Frogs, and the 8 Immortals at the back with their legendary supernatural animals

After finishing from the Eight Immortals we walked along the sandy beachside towards Penglai’s Pavilion. The Pavilion was on a hillside just at the beach. Its seaside location was nice along with the great greenery, which you find almost all around China. It had different temples and a wall surrounding it. Temples are the main traditional buildings of the Chinese architecture, as the mud castles (or Hisns) with the wind towers are the main traditional buildings of the Emirati architecture.

PengLai Pavilion

Cable cars going to Heaven!

After finishing from the Pavilion we went to ChangDao (island) which has attractions such as a Cliff, a Reef, a Mountain, a Beach and so. We went by a ferry that took 40 minutes to reach. It was my first time in such a ferry. We did not know anything about ChangDao which made it interesting to inspect everything on our own. On the island no one speaks English at all! And there was no single foreigner other than the 3 of us. Although we did not want a taxi, one taxi driver kept on following us for more than an hour hoping that we get into the taxi. We walked to the main touristic place from which we had to buy the tickets to visit the different touristic places on the island. There were two different tours the 1^st is to the Northern part (for 100 Yuans) and the 2^nd was to the Southern part (for 100Yuans) or 150 Yuans for both. We counted how much money we had left …and the shock was there! We can either go for

1st Day, 1st Trip, 1st Week

Since I have to speed up publishing posts to synchronize with real-time, I will write about the 1^st Day, 1^st Week and 1^st Trip in China here all together.

When I landed in Yantai Airport, Mr. Liu RuiYang, my direct teammate, who has a Masters in Chemical Engineering, was waiting for me holding a poster that said ‘Chehade’. I felt like a VIP when I saw it! Here, family names are written before given names as I noticed in almost all situations, and the labels are at the end. If written in Chinese you would say RuiYang Liu Mr (but I will be writing their given names first as we are used to). I did not know if I had to call him Mr. or not, but he looked so young like less than 22 years, but turned out to be 28! So I just started calling him Liu without the Mr and it flowed with everyone who appeared to me to be young. Also, the Chinese like to give themselves western names when dealing with foreigners as to ease it on us when we want to call them. Liu named himself Jerry but I told him that I would prefer calling him in his Chinese name. Liu and everyone else have been always helpful anytime, anyhow and anywhere. People here are all selfless and would offer help eagerly. Throughout my coming posts I will be including more about the Chinese people and their lifestyle, habits and so.

On our way from Yantai Airport to the dorm, which took around 40 minutes, I felt like I have landed in Beirut airport and I am going to my village, Insarriyeh, in the South. That was because the weather, nature, scenery and even the taxi felt all so similar. On our way, the sky was cloudy and the temperature was 22C. It was drizzling rain and the breeze coming from the windows of the taxi was so refreshing. There is good deal of greenery and there is a river. The taxi car was old like the taxi’s in Lebanon, but had a counter like the ones in UAE. Instantly, besides recalling Lebanon’s weather, I said to myself “at last I am away from the grilling weather in UAE!! (I thought it in Arabic though :P).” We reached to the dorms and had an hour of napping and went to check out the company where I met our team leader Dr. Chen Haibo who is an organic chemist. In the adjacent lab, I met Lauren (from Scotland) who came two weeks before me also through IAESTE, and works in the same building but with a different team. Later I’ll post more about my work and team, and also about the accommodation.

At LaoHu Shan (Tiger Mountain)

My team had invited me to a trip that had happened the next day, Saturday 11^th June, and I definitely went with them. Our company, Wanhua, takes its employees every 2 months for trips free of charge, so I was lucky to reach exactly on one of those trips, and I would also be joining them in the next one.

This 1^st trip was to LǎoHǔ Shān (Tiger Mountain), which is famous for two things, its history as it was a battlefield in the 1920’s between the Japanese and the Chinese, and more importantly it is known for the plenty Cherries! We picked up lots of juicy red fresh cherries directly from their trees. Moreover, related to the war history, I realized the hatred between China and Japan from the plays they showed and from what the people told me. The plays were surely in Chinese but they were understandable. The outdoors play had real houses and some horses. They actually used fireworks to imitate rockets, mines, and fire. It was so lively and vivid.

Cherries!

Some friends. Liu is directly beside me. Guo is another teammate (Middle, white t-shirt with no hat).

I had my first Chinese lunch during this trip. The food was different but nice. It was all sweet. The tomatoes had sugar on them not salt! It is delicious..try it! It was the first serious time I try eating with chopsticks (the few passive times in UAE do not count, and chopsticks are actually used for ALL the kinds of food you have in a meal like rice, peanuts, noodles, chopped vegetables and even the tiniest beans, and sometimes you pick them peice-by-peice!). It was tough for me. They were teaching me how to hold it and