At one point the city was occupied by the Germans and the Japanese but it is most known for Tsingtao, its beer and brewing company.
If I had to choose an American city that closely matched the culture and style of Qingdao, I would probably go with Key West down in Florida. At first I thought maybe Las Vegas but the city is so much more laid back than the manic, wild Vegas strip. In Qingdao, there is a very specific culture and I would call it (with confidence) a beer culture. The city has the Tsingtao brewery and they have come to embrace that fully. With it's sea food, beautiful coast, and excessive amounts of beer, I have decided that Qingdao is China's Key West.
Beer kegs are tied to street signs and every restaurant is incomplete without at least four huge kegs of beer. The Tsingtao brewery towers over Beer Street (yes, there is a street called Beer Street) and beckons both lushes and tourists alike. I would recommend this tour to anyone who comes to Qingdao whether you are a fan of beer or not. It offers you a look at the history and culture of the city you are currently visiting. You look at the history, the methods of brewing beer, you can look in at the actual factory, they have the "Drunken House" that is similar to an illusion/fun house that is guaranteed to make you laugh out loud, and everyone gets a glass of their unfiltered Tsingtao beer. I admit that before I got to China, I didn't have much of a relationship with alcohol outside of rum punch, wine, and martinis but I thoroughly enjoyed the factory tour with The Adams and I've come to have a loving relationship with the beer in China (though I am still not an alcoholic... please believe me...).
Besides beer, one of Qingdao's specialties is sea food. Where Cangqian and Hangzhou have "chicken", veggies, and sausage, Qingdao has squid, fish, and crab. One of the foods I have wanted to try for years now is starfish. If you guys remember Samantha Brown from the Travel Channel TV show, "Passport to Europe," you might remember that she had a show about Beijing during the Olympics. One of the foods she ate while she was here in China was starfish and since then it has been on my (official) unofficial bucket list. Last time I was in China I searched for starfish and never found any... this was most likely due to the fact that I was here in the dead of winter in December. My broken heart of nine months was healed when I arrived in Qingdao. Starfish is EVERYWHERE. You can get it cooked on a stick and just wander around with it or you can order it at a fancy restaurant. And that is exactly what I did.
If I had to describe starfish I would say that it is very difficult to eat with not a lot of meat on the inside. The meat is green (like our beer!) and it had the same consistency as flaky crab meat with a hint of fishy seaweed. I liked it enough to eat the whole thing but I don't think I would go through the work of breaking it all open to try and get to the meat ever again. The rest of the group was very adventurous with their culinary choices as well--we shared the starfish along with sea urchin. Up north, apparently donkey is pretty popular and (my) Adam was determined to get us to try some. After searching for a while, the restaurant we ended up at did have donkey... intestines... served cold... Still not sure how I feel about that!
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| I had to try and not look at how intestine-like this looked... >_< |
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| Devouring our seafood like champs. BOOM. |
Another great thing besides the beer and the seafood in Qingdao is the fact that it is right on the coast, looking out over the Pacific Ocean. I imagine the shoreline of Qingdao is similar to those of the Pacific Northwest in the US--very rocky and jagged with small tide pools here and there. Of course, since we are in China, it was ridiculously crowded but that did not stop us from joining the hundreds of other people climbing over the rocks to get down to the (cold) water. Throwing off our adventure boots, we rolled our pants up (#skinnyjeanprobs) and splashed in the water for a bit. A great perk of being in a country that doesn't give a damn about littering? Sea glass was EVERYWHERE!!
When I travel, one of my favorite things to do is just sit and watch people and let me tell you: in China, it is always entertaining!! We walked along the ridiculously crowded beach (seriously--we didn't go anywhere near the water), I collected some sand for my dad, and we found a nice shady table and decided to set up camp for the rest of the day. Lost in translation a bit, we accidentally ordered three full pitchers of beer so we stayed where we were for a few hours. Putting aside the fact that we are convinced we saw someone die (sorry guys), it was such a nice time sitting, getting to know each other more, joking with each other, and watching the sun set. Eventually, the beach cleared out and we were some of the only ones left... I love it when you are in a strange place with new people and you completely lose track of the time--one minute it is lunch time and the sun is shining and it is hot outside and the next moment it is late at night, you missed dinner, and the sun is long gone. In my opinion: THAT is living.
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| Artsy shot to document the epic mistake we made... epically beautiful mistake... |
Perhaps some of you have seen the show on Travel Channel (I am a fan of this channel if you couldn't deduce that on your own), "Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern." For those of you who know me, I am obsessed with that show and I love Andrew Zimmern. Half of the things on My Life List are things that I have seen on that show. Now supposedly, there are only two things in the entire world that Andrew Zimmern attempted to eat on his show and could not swallow. Stinky tofu and durian. Lucky for me, BOTH of these delicious morsels can be found on the streets of China. Now I know that I cannot get stinky tofu anywhere near my face in order to actually eat it (if you smelled it, you would understand). HOWEVER, ever since I saw the episode with Andrew and the infamous slice of durian, I wanted to try it and it was thrown down onto My Life List. After a few failed attempts at actually finding the spiky green fruit, I bought two small slices and was determined to eat it.
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| Clearly I was not a fan. |
I've been told that the taste/smell (the smell will get you) is similar to a mixture of rotten onions and turpentine. Personally, I felt like it tasted like rotten eggs. I knew going into it that it would be bad--both The Adams warned me about it and refused to try it again with me. I kind of feel like trying durian is a sort of initiation the foreign teachers make each other go through when they first arrive in China. Well, I've tried it (though I don't foresee myself trying it again any time soon) and I can cross off #158 from My Life List!!
Now, I've been told that the best way to get rid of the taste of durian is beer. Okay, so that is a lie but we were in Qingdao, the capitol of beer in China, and there was one more aspect of the Qingdao culture that we had yet to take part in--beer in a bag. Yes, the people of Qingdao will take a pitcher of beer and pour it into a plastic bag for the lushes of the city to walk around Beer Street, sipping on their beer through a straw that is poked through the side of the bag. If that is not ridiculous, then I don't know what is. That being said, of course I got a beer in a bag and I loved every sip of it (somehow beer just tastes better coming out of a bag than the same old can or bottle)!!
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| The Adams with their (first) bag of beer |
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| When in Qingdao, I suppose... |
And so with bellies filled with seafood, sea glass in our pockets, a deeper knowledge of the German history and the beer culture of Qingdao, and our bags of beer, we packed up our backpacks and headed up north a little further to the city of Dalian...
To be continued...
Until Next Time,
Amanda
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