The QingDao Trip Part 1

So, going back a little, I'll start out by talking about one of those "duh" moments: such as, "duh, there are going to be delays on every single domestic flight in China when the country of 1.3 Billion people has airports smaller than Dane County Regional Airport in Madison, WI (so real, real small... like 15 gates small.)" If the intro didn't give it away, after leaving work on Friday and having a nice Taiwanese meal, Alice and I were delayed at Hongqiao Airport for about an hour. No big deal, except it meant we first landed at about 11:00 pm in Qingdao. There was some brutal negotiations with the taxi drivers at the airport after they saw my white face and dollar signs popped up in their eyes, cartoon style. While Alice yelled at a couple of them in Chinese I wandered over to the huge sign that said "Airport to Downtown Bus" and discovered we could get to our hotel for about a quarter of what the drivers were trying to charge. So we hopped on the bus and started the 45 minute drive into town.

I had been led to believe this was a small, former German colony and port city that we had landed in... I had been mislead. Qingdao is a "small city" of just over 3 million, covering an area roughly the same as Milwaukee, WI. We arrived at our hotel and checked in, changed and then asked the guard/concierge at the door where we might find a fun bar. This resulted in the cab driver he turned us over to taking us to a KTV Night Club (basically a kareoke brothel), and after we politefully declined, taking us to a second, slightly classier looking KTV Night Club. At this point we got out and wandered towards what we guessed was the city center and happened to stumble upon a group of Americans coming out of a huge club called "Feeling." Through the slurred speech, we got the impression it was a good time and headed in to find it was "House/Dance-remix-of-American-songs" night. I tried whiskey and green tea for the first time (actually dangerously tasty) and danced to techno remixes of "West Virginia", the OC theme song, and Journey's "Don't Stop Believing." Turned in around 3:00 am after downing roughly a gallon of water.