So now I’m all checked into the hotel and head up to my room. Bellboy refuses to let me take my own bags since I might get lost going to my room, and although normally I would be facetious right there, this room is not normal. Hotel has 5 floors, or so I thought. I have a special loft room that is above the 5th floor through a separate hallway. I turn the corner and then I see this:
Yeah those are the stairs that I have to take to go to my room. If you can’t understand what this is, it’s because it is a split staircase. Easy now, but think about what I am here for this weekend…Some other room pics, the room is very nice.
The rest are posted on http://picasaweb.google.com/106627478281564188735.
After I’ve put everything down, we decide to head out and meet up some other guys. Get there to a Chinese club ready to party and its just odd. We get some bottles of Absolut since there are about 6 of us besides anyone else we meet, but as I’m looking around I see quite a few Chinese passed out. Normally in the US, if you are passed they kick you out of the club, here they just take your drink away, guess it’s cheaper than paying for a taxi? It ends up being a lot of fun. The next day we wake up and decide to meet up and grab some food, massage, then head out for the evening (yeah doesn’t seem like much but when your breakfast is at 330pm, that’s what you get). This night there were more of us and we went to an Expat area of Qingdao which was a lot of fun. Dinner was at a nice German restaurant, and then some light drinks at an Expat sports bar complete with a girl who decided to test out her stuff as a pole dancer (no nudity). We ended up going out to some neat clubs tonight as well, one with a Filipino Live Band which was awesome.
The next day we woke up, grabbed some grub then headed to the Tsing Tao Brewery. Did a brewery tour which was pretty cool (pictures available as well). It was interesting to see how proud the entire country is of the brewery with basically everyone of power in China having visited it. Towards the end of the tour they serve some unfiltered beer. Well I think the need to bottle it because it’s delicious. It’s basically a good Hefeweizen, but why they don’t bother with it I can’t understand. After a few drinks at a nearby restaurant to subside the rain, we decided to head over to the festival. It was a little bit of a cab ride, but once we got there, it’s not exactly what I pictured. It was a carnival with the beer parts on the outskirts. So what you have is the kids running around with their parents playing games and riding rides (mixed in with some drunken adults) and then the shit show on the exterior. First we went into the Paulaner tent then the Budweiser (these weren’t my choices). And basically these are setup as a big beer hall, with tables sprawled with drinks and food as far as the eye can see and a stage in the middle. The stage is basically a variety show like Sábado Gigante. You have musicians, clowns, bikini models, drunk Americans, gymnasts, talent show contestants, and auctions going on. Some pictures below:
During the night people wanted to go the carnival part and ride some rides, to which I provided a massive veto. And here is my reasoning:
a) It was raining
b) I’ve seen the Chinese building a nuclear power plant which has tons of oversight, you think I trust a random carnival?
c) Chinese decided they wanted to buy me beer.
d) If I didn’t I would never have been in this picture (when in China do as the Chinese do?):
Now the carnival was a lot of fun, except for one insanely gross part…the restrooms. If that’s even what you call it. Let me paint you a visual here. You have a building off to the side near the beer tents that has a women’s side and men’s side. Around 300yards away from this building is apparently open game to pee and puke everywhere. First time a walk in there is a foreigner peeing almost in the doorway (not a stall or anything just the floor), and then all you can do is smell pure ammonia. The bathroom is a gigantic trough and the floor is all tiles many of which are broken with puddles in them…Regardless I find a spot and as I am done I turn around and see the eastern toilets, no doors, no stalls, and then drunk Chinese hitting them up as if there were no tomorrow. Some people seem to think humans aren’t animals, yeah right…Needless to say I have thrown out those socks and washed the shoes thrice by now (and some people wore sandals).
The rest of the evening was a lot of fun. We went out to one of the clubs from before which was packed. The next day we started our trek back to site at 10am and ended up getting back about 730pm. Kinda rough when you have to deal with 1.5-2hrs of plane delay, and end up missing any potential buses back to site then convince some Chinese man to drive the 4 of us back, yeah that happened…
Will post some more stuff hopefully early next week mostly on work life. Other than that I booked a trip to Vietnam for our October holiday. We are heading to Ho Chi Minh City on October 1st, trekking through the country, and eventually headed back on October 6th from Hanoi. Should be an awesome time with some friends. If you have input let me know, we don’t have definitive plans yet.
