Qingdao

You might know the city, at least by name, without even being aware of it.
Qingdao is often spelled Tsingtao, yes the same as the name of the Chinese beer you find in Luxembourg.

A hundred years or so, the Germans actually set foot in this city and not surpringly they ached for some of their own food and drinks. So they founded one of the first breweries in China. They even went so far to brew it according to the German Reinheitsgebot while importing the ingredients by ship. Today it is the biggest brewery in China after it assimilated a number of its competitors. While visiting the brewery's museum you get to taste some of its freshly made beer.

Qindgdao is also a favorite spot for weddings and the mandatory wedding pictures. Following this trend we had a beautiful wedding ceremony in this sea city.

But before I get ahead of myself we got up and ate some of the typical breakfast of Northern China; a shao bing.

It is basically a kind of puff pastry in the shape of a French bun with a savoury meat or vegetable filling baked right into the dough.

After this tasty start in the day we, Ran's father drove us to the capital of Shandong province; Jinan.

We arrived with ample time to pick up our tickets for the high-speed train. Using these trains is very straight-forward and in my experience works flawlessy. The down-side is that you have to book your tickets in advance by providing an Id-card or passport. The tickets can then be simply picked up in the train-station in one of those ticket outlets.

I was told that there used to be a large grey market around those tickets set up by people buying loads of the tickets and reselling them at much higher prices. Especially around the national holidays when half of China is traveling back to their hometown to celebrate with their families. The government stepped in and now the tickets are strictly in ones name.

I am not convinced that stricter security checks automatically lead to increased security but it is common to have these security checks in subways and train stations all around China.

These days it is also more common to see Colonel Sanders in the public than Chairman Mao.

Another common sight are drinking stations providing hot water not only to refill tea bottles that everybody seems to carry but also to prepare instant noodles. I had some of te best instant noodles while staying in China.

Once on the train we had a three to four hour ride ahead of us. Plenty time to observe the outside.
In Luxembourg, solar power has only recently become popular as a means to build more energy-efficient houses. Here it is simply a source of hot water. Apart from boiling water in huge water cookers, people rely on solar-powered heaters to get warm water. Hence nobody looks twice when these devices squat on roofs.

After we arrived we were picked up from the train station by some friends as we had not the best experience with local taxi drivers in the past.

Afterwards we set out for the waterfront to enjoy some delicious beef BBQ.

Here is a night time view of the skyline and the * Wind of May* sculpture.

Tomorrow morning we will take the plane to fly to Seoul. See you on the other side :)