Studying in China

TsingTao, QingDao, 青岛

Week 2 here in PKU, mid term break just over for NUS and NTU. Headache.

Yupz, mama and I have safely returned from TsingTao after 3-4 days. Thank God!

Let me begin from our train ride at Peking Station.

For those of you who are not aware, there are 3 classes available for train rides in China. The soft and hard berth, and the hard seat. Having slept in the soft berth on our last China trip to and fro Beijing, Shanghai and Xian, mama and I decided to give the hard berth a try.

We got the cheapest upper berth for privacy sake.

Yupz, it is amazing. First it is a challenge to climb up from the lower berth, via the middle berth to reach the top, then you can't sit upright in the upper berth! What an experience! Mama and I spent the first ten minutes laughing so hard, those passengers below us must have thought we were nuts.

Day One

Upon arrival at TsingTao, we headed off to the nearest beach.

After much persuasion from a middle-aged woman, whom mama spent some time talking to about her son who's studying in Peking, we boarded a ferry for a coastal tour.

This is 栈桥，TsingTao's symbol and what you see on the TsingTao beer can.

Up on 信号山

Hmm, huge banners along the road said that if we didn't visit the TsingTao Underwater World, we couldn't say that we've been to TsingTao. And so it was - 100rmb per person.

Underwater world was OK, but I was quite upset by the way they kept the seals and penguins in the 海兽馆. Sigh.

Day Two

I think the guide said this sculpture was called "The Wind in May". Famous, so take lor...but couldn't find more info in my guidebook about it.

崂山, the Mount Lao range, was known by the ancient Chinese as the "Premier Famous Mountain on the Sea". Its main peak is about 1132m above sea level, and it is one of the main cradles of Taoism.