Quirky Qingdao

I recently made a weekend trip to Jinan 济南 for a friend's wedding and decided to visit the famous Chinese city by the sea -- Qingdao 青岛, since it is situated in the same province as Jinan, in Shandong 山东 province, and it's only about 4 hours speed-train ride away, South-east of Beijing. 

Read on about the interesting ways of Shandong-ites (what I'd like to call them), and some appetising (or revolting) pictures -- depending on the strength of your gut ;)

Jinan 济南

Allow me to first start with Jinan, the Capital of Shandong Province. 
Prior to my trip, I asked a local friend of mine from Shandong province about her hometown. She introduced Jinan as one of the four 'furnaces' 四大火炉 in China - the first three being Chongqing 重庆, Nanjing 南京 and Wuhan 武汉 situated at the basin of the longest river in Asia - Yangtze River 长江.

Jinan has a relatively high precipitation for northern Chinese standards. as the city is surrounded by mountains on three sides and one side facing the Yangtze River ('三面环山，一面对河‘), hence summer can be rather oppressive. 

I did a further Google search and found that Jinan was named as a candidate for the Fourth 'Furnace' in China, and that it is interchangeable with two other Chinese cities - Changsha 长沙 and NanChang 南昌.  In 2010, there was an emergence of a few more hot summer cities which were competing to take over the positions of the four 'furnaces', that the number of 'furnaces' was increased to 7 (and more, fighting to be on the waiting list)! To be honest, I'm not going to bother keeping up. Looking at the increasing number of cars on the road, and the rate of industrialisation, deforestation etc, I believe most cities will be on the list in no time.

Oh well... Who doesn't like to be attached to a superlative eh? I too, would like to strive to be the 'Hottest', hah.. *wink* 

Qingdao 青岛

Approximately 2 hours speed-train ride east of Jinan, 'Qing' 青 in Chinese means 'Green' or 'Lush' and 'dao' 岛 means 'Island'. True enough, I found Qingdao to be a very green city with many tree-lined streets which makes it very comfortable for walking around the city. It was also surprisingly foggy and cool in the night around July when we visited. Definitely refreshing to get away from the pollution in Beijing to some fresh, cool air!

I wouldn't say the beach is fantastic especially if you compare it with the beaches in South East Asia, the Caribbean, or the Mediterranean region, but I think it's probably a good option for if you don't want to travel too far from the 'Jing for the seaside feel.

We really enjoyed our walk by the sea, the seafood, the Chinese/European architecture,  the beer (Qingdao was once colonised by the Germans, hence the beer and German architecture). We also stumbled upon some really interesting sights in our one day in Qingdao. How I wish we had at least one more day to explore and discover other interesting/funny things, such as these...

Biking in the sea... So unique we had to try it.
I must say, it is very innovative and it was actually nice to get out to the sea, away from the hordes of people at the beach. 

The temperature of the seawater was pretty cool, which kind of shocked my toes for awhile, as I have naturally associated sea water to be warm like what I'm used to in South East Asia.

Tsingtao Beer Museum - one of the more famous attractions in Qingdao. If you've been in China long enough, you definitely would have heard of Tsingtao beer - sold at every corner of China. For RMB60 (approx. USD10), you gain entry to the brewery, the museum, on top of getting a glass of raw beer, a glass of draft beer, and a chance to enter a room that simulates being drunk - perfect for teetotalers... and drinkers alike! ;)

Apologies, for my friends and I were so excited about the free beer (besides, it's really hot out there too ya know..) that we just gulped half the glass down before I remembered to snap a photo of it. The picture above, is a picture of RAW BEER. 

What is raw beer? Raw beer is unfiltered. Beer that still has yeast in it. I felt it to be heavier on the palette and much richer. If you notice, it also has less clarity compared to its filtered sibling - draft beer.

This is a video we took at the room in the beer museum that simulates being drunk! It was quite fun. I wish the length of the room was longer.

The next photo is something you can find ONLY in Qingdao...

Fresh takeaway beer in a plastic bag... Straight from a keg from a street vendor!

I had a chat with a middle-aged taxi driver and he told me that back in his days, people would hang these plastic bags containing fresh beer at the rear-view mirror of their car, insert a straw and sip their beer while driving! Heh... Just picture that. Drink-driving at its BEST!!

And since we were in a city by the sea, we couldn't miss out on seafood.

Being a city girl, I was fascinated by these live octopus, hence I suggested that we got a table right by the aquarium so I could admire these graceful creatures floating gracefully in the aquarium.. One of which would end up in our tummies... yikes....

I took the video below when the shop owner picked up 'the unlucky one'... I suppose this octopus knew its fate... I'd like to apologise in advance for my squeals, but I was rather afraid that one of its arms would lash out at me, or worse, have its suction cups clinging on to my face..!!

Right after I clicked on the 'Stop' button to end the video recording, I glanced past the shoulder of my friend seated opposite me.... and I saw something... something with tentacles slowly creeping up her shoulder!.....Aaaaahh.... Nah, I kid, hehe... I saw the shop owner tearing apart the head of our unlucky octopus and muck flowing out of its decapitated head... Ugh.. God.... It's got to be its brains and blue blood... I almost lost my appetite. Thankfully I didn't get my friends to look over, or the poor octopus would've died for no reason...

A few days after I'd returned from Qingdao, my mum sent me an email with this super interesting image:

That is actually a 'fresh' dead squid (as you can see half its head is already gone). It 'dances' when soy sauce is poured on it. Apparently, the high salt content in the soy sauce reacts with ions in the cells of the octopus' arms (not tentacles), activating its neurons, creating voltage differences, making it 'come back to life'!!! 

This dish is called 'Odori don' (Dancing rice bowl) in Japan. The dish is such a success that the chef/founder at the restaurant Ikkatei Tabiji, in Hakodate, Japan, patented the name of the creation. Now other restaurants in that area have come up with their own versions of the 'Hakodate dish' under different names.

I wish so bad that my mum had sent this to me before my trip, as I had the perfect opportunity while I was in Qingdao to try this out!! 
Oh well, next time.


Next, is a picture my friend sent to me. He told me to have a taste of this Qingdao delicacy. Would you like to guess what these are?

At one glance, I thought they were baby rats. At closer inspection, I realised they didn't have eyes or tails, so baby rats were out of the question.

These are actually 'Sea intestines' 海肠, or as my friend would rather call them - 'Sea dicks'... Since they're rather... Phallic looking. The 'Sea Intestines' are a kind of sea worm that grow in the cold waters of the Yellow sea region. I went around showing vendors this picture, in hopes I'd find it. I wanted to see them alive and wiggling, and check with myself if I'd dare eat them. Locals say they're meant to be eaten raw. Not sure if I can stomach that, but I may just try a bite of a cooked 'Sea intestine'. Just like how I tried Sandworm in Hainan :)

I'm sure there are many other interesting things in Qingdao which I missed by being there for just a day. If you see anything else interesting in Qingdao, do share them with me.

Happy (yummy) travels!