This is the question that I have asked myself since I arrived in Qingdao. It is the most westernized city that I have seen in China so far. I don't me westernized because they have indoor plumbing, but westernized because they have adds for 300 USD sunglasses all over the place. It is a little disheartening. Qingdao is a tourist town and they thrive on that industry, and I had almost forgot why I hate tourist towns. Everybody is trying to sell you something. The bottles of water have gone up anywhere from 200% to 500% if you want a cold one. The Foreign tourist don't know any better so they buy it, suckers. Some lady tried to charge me 5 quai for a cold bottle of water, normally 1 quai in Shiyan. I laughed at her for like 5 minutes after I walked away. However she was the only person I saw selling cold bottles of water. Enough of that though lets go back to the beginning of this wonderful journey.
If you ever have the chance to take a Chinese train ride that last at least 24 hours, drive a metal spike into your forehead instead. It will be much more fun and probably a lot cheaper. Finn was making fun of me because he took a 5o hour train ride once. He was also in the company of 4 other people. For those of you who don't know I do enjoy some alone time from time to time, but I am also a very social person who enjoys the company of friends and good conversation. From the moment I got on the train till I checked into my hotel 25 hours later, I did not say one word to anybody. I called Lily on the phone for 3 minutes to handle some business and that was that. The good news is my ipod bttery is a champ and it lasted pretty much the whole trip. However I only had like 5 hurs worth of songs on it, so I heard some repeats. That owes to fact that I have a small library of music and an old old school shuffle that is only 512 mbs. Which is very small if you don't know. So I rode on a train, at least I had the bottom bunk, and I ate on the train, you have to bring your own food, and I peed on the train, I now know how Moss felt whenever he was at see. Apparently it is okay in Chinese society to sleep on the public train in nothing but your draws, because Lord forbide you wrinkle your pants. So at 6 a.m. on the train, I was up cause everybody else was, the curtains were thrown open and the lights turned on. So I was sitting in my bunk listening to my ipod, when dude on the top bunk decides to hop down in front of me. He had his pants in one hand and was still trying to put his shirt on while descending bunks. Now when I say top bunk there are 3 levels so he was way up their. So because of the extra difficulty this cause him to pause while dismounting with his man parts facing me in his whitie tighties. Needless to say it was not the most pleasant morning I have ever experienced. I made it through and finally made it to my hotel room where I could shower and poop in peace, I may have taken 19 Immodium advance on the train to prevetn me from ever having to poop again. It is times like that when I do feel sorry for the ladies. It was bad enough for me to have pee in a whole in the floor while the train was bumping all around I can't imagine trying to do that as a Lady. I give props to all the Ladies out there that have successfully negotiate a Chinese train restroom, or any hole in the floor train restroom.
I decide I want to eat in the hotel restaurant before I head out into the city. So I go eat in the Jazz Beef Club, swanky name for a swanky joint. The first thing I look for is drinks and the waitress points me to the milkshakes, done. I had a mango milkshake and it was probaly the most bestest more delicious thing I havee ever put in my mouth. I would be lying if I said I haven't had one every day since. When I walk in the place they just know now Mango Milkshake guy is here. So I walk out of my hotel ready to search the city and right across the street from my hotel is the Golden Arches. I needed to go back to the train station and buy my ticket home, because in China you can only buy tickets from the station the train is leaving from, unless you can buy the roundtrip packages. Which they have very few off and are bought up as soon as they go on sale by travel agencies. So I decide I don't want to take a taxi and I asked for directions at the front desk, and the lady drew me a horrible map and said 10 minutes go left walk down street. Ok. Well somehow I completely missed the train station and ended up at the beach. Hence the majority of my first picks are of the beach. So after chilling for a while I decided to make a circle search for the train station. In thecourse of this search I managed to find all kinds of cool stuff except for the train station, sigh. I found the giant church of which there are pictures. The church is gated off and apparently is only used for wedding photo backdrops. The church is at the end of the European style street with my hotel and McDonalds at the beginning. The middle contains beer stands, so Europeans get up every day go to McDonalds then get a beer and go to church. So in frustration of not finding the train station i went and took a nap. I got up and decided I wanted to take some photos of the skyline at night. So I went in search of the beach, guess where I ended up. The train station! Now some of you might be laughing and saying I have no sense of direction the problem is the beach is all over I am on a penensula, so the first day I only discovered a small part of the beach. Since I was just wandering I didn't really pay attention to how I go there. Then in the course of the circular search I managed to cover a lot of ground without establishing any landmarks to figure out where I was going. I didn't even know the church was literally 200 meters from my hotel cause I never looked backe when I left it the first time. Now however I am a navigating genius and I can find my way in the dark.
I promised myself that if I was going to write this blog I would be honest even if that honesty could be misconstrued as mean or hurtful. i am just trying to catelouge my experiences and emotions with now ulterior motives.That being said as much fun as I have had on this trip it has been way more boring, pointless and lonley. The people I was supposed to meet are not arriving till this evening at 7is, I say ish cause yesterday it was 5. So I will have been in this city for 3 days by myself. I have to leave on Wednesday, because my train ride is 24 hours I have a class at 8 a.m. on Friday. So the sum total of time I will actually spend with my friends will be less than the actual amount of time it has taken to travel to and from this city. I am trying my best not to be bitter about this situation but it is hard. I have basically walked around for 3 days with no one to talk to and nothing to do. It's sucked. To top it off I still have a 24 hour train ride to look forward to in 2 days, and the best part is they were out of bed tickets so I could only get a seat ticket. So I can't even lie down and sleep during the trip I have to sit in a seat, yippie. I am sure when my friends show up I will have fun and be very glad to see them and I will try to make the most of the time I have with them. However at this point most of me feels like this was a colossal waste of time that could have been solved with some better planning. As I said I am not trying to be mean or bitter but I am trying to be honest about the emotions that I am feeling, trust me i have had a lot of time for quiet introspection in the last 4 days.
I want to give a few new shoutouts:
My uncle Mike and Aunt Lisa and cousin Casey up in Swanton Ohio. I hope you guys are enjoying and I am getting plenty of sleep now.
Judy a close family friend who used to babysit me when I was young and encouragiable, now I am just older and even more so.
I think that is it for now I will have more for you guys in a day or two check out the photo gallery.
