Hey everyone, Pauly here...
We arrived home from our little mini holiday in Qingdao yesterday. We had a really great week in the little seaside city and would love to go back there if we ever get another chance.
We stayed at this placed called the YHA Old Observatory and was absolutely fan-bloody-tastic. I highly recommend it to anyone planning to visit the area. It is run by a Chinese family but the guy in charge (AJ) went to high school in the Sunshine Coast and did his university in Boston so his English was really good. His best attribute though (other than being super friendly and a great fella all round) was that he knew what westerners wanted even if the westerners didn't know what they wanted. After being in China for a while, you forget about a lot of little things that you miss and, at this hostel, they had everything from equal sugar and masterfoods tomato sauce to western toilets and great showers, western music/tv/films, soft beds and AMAZING home made pizzas!
But the absolute best thing about this hostel was, by far, the mamahuhu lounge. The hostel is a refurbished observatory as the name suggests and on the top floor there was this great dining/lounging/drinking area that had a fantastically awesome view of Qingdao. It had a basic western restaurant (with great food like real grilled cheese sandwiches and fries, currys, aforementioned home made pizzas, proper steak and chicken burgers with fries etc), a bunch of tables and big lounge chairs, a pool table, great lighting and a tv/dvd projector that projected onto the side of the actual observatory. Another cool thing was that, not only was the bar open until the wee hours of the night, but also the western food wasn't ridiculously priced as it usually is in China.
It was great hanging out up there for a western breakfast, going into town during the day and then coming home and chatting with the friends we made at the hostel and drinking Qingdao beer fresh from the Qingdao brewery.
A special shout out goes out to Snow, Evie, Tim, Bobby and Mike, some awesome American teachers + 1 awesome Chinese girl we hung out with most of the time we were in Qingdao. (Sorry, I just realised we didn't get any photos of you guys and gals!)
The bar also provided a communal acoustic guitar for those late night drinking sessions ;)
When we arrived at the hostel, like the stupid westerners we are, we just assumed we could book a room when we arrived....the day before one of the biggest national holidays of the year in China. So, lo and behold, there were no rooms available at the inn. Luckily, after talking to AJ for a little bit and declining the offer to book a room in a "sauna" down the road, we asked if we could hire one of their tents (they have tents for hire in the summer). He insisted that it would be to cold and said we could sleep a tiny little room that was soon to be refurbished into a massage room. They set up a nice bed for us in there and everything. After that first night, we were able to book the next 3 nights in a perfect little private room with a shower and western toilet, espn and air conditioning. This was much better than what our friends got as they had a few to a room and had to shower in the basement showers....if i remember correctly.
So yeh we went to annual Qingdao beer festival and ate some great meat kebabs (shou cou i think its called), met a dead deer and drank a bunch of beer.
Caitlin and I also did a tour of the Qingdao beer factory.....and then drank a bunch of beer.
LoL - the nutritional values of tsingtao beer. Nice
Every night we would come home and relax upstairs...and attempt to drink a bunch more beer. It was awesometown.
So yeah, if you ever come to China, i definitely recommend the old observatory and Qingdao. Less smog, nice weather, great people, good times.
Oh and the website is soooo much better than any other Chinese accommodation website we have seen so far. We found out that the reason for this is because there is French-Canadian who has been living at the hostel for about a year now who is super talented at web design and Internet promotion. We also met this fellow as his bedroom is linked with the massage room so he got a huge fright when he woke up in the morning to go to the toilet as he has to go through our room first (we were passed out stone cold after the beer festival!). Nice.
So, if you want a taste of our little adventure I suggest u pop down to your local liquor store and pick up a couple of tsingtao/qingdao tallies and imagine yourself in this little piece of paradise.
OK well that is about all for now. I've added a skype button to the site and am automatically sending out e-mails to like 10 email addresses I could remember whenever a new post goes up, k? K.
Argh. have to start teaching again for 12 weeks straight now. Stupid teaching. lol. See yaz.
Pauly
1 comment:
Deer me, looks like you kids are having a good time. But western food? eat that when you get back... you should be tucking into some sweet tender bambi!
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