Qingdao and on ...

Have you ever wondered how to pronounce Tsingtao beer correctly? We can confirm that the correct pronunciation is 'Ching-Dow' which is the how you say of the city of its birth - Qingdao ... and in the spirit of research we visited this seaside city...and boy do they take their beer very seriously here.

Around the turn of the century, German troops occupied the city and although they were there for less than a decade, they left behind a legacy of European style architecture. Walking around the seaside city past the twin spire church and ornate train station it's hard to believe it's still China.

More famously the Germans were here just long enough to develop a thirst and establish Tsingtao brewery. Leaving little to chance they imported ALL the brewing machinery and raw ingredients from Germany. One hundred year later Tsingtao is the beer of hundreds of millions of Chinese and China's top export beer worldwide. The success and fame has made Qingdao city beer mad, small corner shops sell fresh beer by the jin (half kilo) into plastic shopping bags straight from the keg. Not the most durable of containers but it scored high on the novelty value for us.
What visit would be complete without a trip around the Tsingtao brewery and museum....its a brand new facility highlighted by the obligatory sampling....

Qingdao is a swish modern city with long beaches, sailing and windsurfing clubs, fancy office complexes and three lane highways. In 2008 the city plays host to the sailing events of the Beijing Olympics.
Qingdao completes out coast to coast journey from Tallin in Estonia across Russia, Mongolia and China to the Pacific Ocean.
Making our way south we took an overnight train to Shanghai. After a bit of wandering around we located one of the few Chinese hotels who were prepared to take foreigners. Up until a few years ago foreigners could only stay in certain designated hotels. The government has abolished this rule in Beijing - unfortunately the rest of the country has not followed suit so it can take a while to find someone who's willing to participate in sign language and take the chance that you're not going to make off with their lighting fixtures and tv. Our Chinese hotel located near a busy local Hutong and only a short walk away from People's Square ,the Bund and was within easy walking distance of most of Shanghai's sights. One of the highlights of Shanghai is a walk along the spectacular Bund at night when the old building are dramatically lit up. It's here that thousands of tourists take the famous Shanghai skyline photographs. Not wanting to miss out on the retail options we ventured up the shopping street Nanjing Lu. If you enjoy being accosted and dragged down small alleyways on the promise of fake watches, handbags and shoes then this can be enjoyable. For us, it got annoying very quickly to the stage where we were asking the touts if they wanted to buy a watch from us before they had a chance to get their pitch in. We took a day trip north to the city of Suzhou to see the famous gardens. We underestimated the size of the city so unfortunately only got to visit one of the gardens the tranquil "Master of the Fishing Nets" garden. Afterwards, taking the non touristy path back to the train station, we dropped into a local restaurant for dinner. They were so delighted to see us in their restaurant that they gave us free beers and a complementary pottery toothpick holder to remind us of the evening. The owner spent a lot of time running out to cars that pulled up and exchanging 100 RMB notes with the occupants so we probably ate in the local drug baron's restaurant.
Luckily we got a couple of great balmy days in Shanghai before torrential rains hit the city driving us indoors. We spent an evening at The Grand Theatre watching acrobats bend themselves into impossible positions and swing over us precariously on ribbons. Our best indoor find out of the rain was an all you can eat restaurant buffet (french wine and draft beer included) for 126 RMB/ 12 euros/ 20 AUD each. Expecting some tired old buffet we were shocked to find a brand new swanky buffet with all the high quality food that forces you to question how anyone is making any money! e.g sushi, prawns, shanghai hairy crabs, lamb chops, roast beef, Haagen Daz icecream etc. Needless to say we had a lovely evening there eating a targeted selection of amazing food.

After spending a week soaking up the atmosphere of Shanghai we left for the lakeside resort area of Hangzhou - 2 hours from Shanghai. The lake is a huge man made lake with landscaped pedestrian paths around it's circumference. The city streets are lined with stores like Dior, Gucci, Fendi, Ferrari and Mercedes (selling the real deal) you can quickly work out the calibre of tourist that frequents here. On our two day stop we wandered around the lake, looked in the windows of Ferrari, sampled the local speciality West Lake fish in Vinegar and enjoyed some great venison skewers from the vibrant night market.

Full of energy and armed with a supply of "Snickers" bars we made our way by train to the small town of Tangkou at the foot of Huangshan mountain. Tangkou is a quirky little town, a big river runs straight down it's main street - when you wake up every morning you're not sure whether you can hear torrential rain or the river. We'd read that there's a man in town Mr Hu who dispenses advice to tourists and you normally don't have to look for him he'll find you. Arriving late that night and stepping down onto a dark road in plummeting temperatures we weren't putting any money on anyone finding us, that is until a small friendly man presented himself and said "Hello welcome... I'm Mr Hu".

Mr Hu is an energetic local man with a spring in his step who makes it his business to help the tourists in town. In return he hopes that they'll come and sample the food Mrs Hu cooks in their little restaurant. What's unique about the man is that he's as honest as they come, instead of trying to extort money out of tourists he provides accurate information. It's low season now so making a buck in this town is a competitive game. All the restaurants are deserted and everyone is vying for business. After a day in town we realised that Mr Hu is one of the few trustworthy English speaking people in town who would happily see you onto the local bus rather than bundle you off for a day in his brother's taxi.

Thousands of people climb Huangshan each year to see the view of a "sea of clouds" from the top. There are millions of steps up and guesthouses on the top so tourists usually stay up there and rise early to see the dawn. From the moment we arrived in Tangkou it rained and we could barely see the end of the street let alone the mountain so we decided to hang around for a couple of days hoping there'd be a break in the weather. Three days later we'd hiked to the local waterfall, walked up and down the main street multiple times and the weather reports were still not encouraging so we decided Huangshan was not to be this time around.

Moving on we jumped on a bus to the city Tunxi. We wandered through the streets of the city finding a long beautifully preserved street of old wooden houses. The houses have all been coverted into funky art and craft shops.

Tunxi was our gateway to Wuyuan County in Jiangxi Province where we planned to take a step off the well beaten tourist path......stay tuned for more soon.