Sunday, The Day of Rest

It’s hard to believe that this will be my last weekend day in Qingdao. Next weekend, 8 of us (and our 2 Rock Stars) are going to Beijing, and then I get to go back home the following one!

After a killer, but exhausting birthday, I decided that having a low key day was in order. I slept in a bit since we were out pretty late, and had a leisurely breakfast with a few of the gang that had managed to pull themselves out of bed. I got another one of the tasty cream cheese breads from the bakery and set off to the gym for a little run (and to read) as it was in the mid-90’s outside. I spent several hours in my room catching up on things, and while it’s fun to hang out with everyone, it was also good to have a little time to myself.

At 3 PM, Matthias, Suanne, Bharat, Payel, Rafael, and I went out to the Badaguan scenic district. Getting an Uber is always interesting because the addresses all need to be entered in Chinese. There were a bunch of historic buildings that most of the group wanted to walk around and see, but Matthias and I decided that we would rather go to the beach. On the way, there were some charcoal artists on the street drawing portraits. I’m always a sucker for things like that, so after some haggling I settled in on 30 RMB. Of course, it took longer than the 5 minutes that he was saying that it would take, but in the end I was pretty happy. I’m not sure that it’s a dead ringer for me, but you could tell that it’s me as opposed to any one else on the team. What do you think? Let me know @TalkToErik or in the comments below.

The beach itself was very nice. The sand was obviously imported from somewhere as it was very high quality. 2 RMB to get in, and then Matthias and I tried squatting under an umbrella which got some attention pretty quickly. As expected, there was a fee to use the umbrella, but eventually we got it sorted out. These prices weren’t negotiable (I tried), but the equivalent of under $5 for an hour was pretty reasonable. I brought my Kindle and enjoyed just laying there and reading for a bit.

About an hour and a half in Maria joined the two of us (and the A team was back together). Partially by the nature of the assignment (we commute to and from Han Te together, work together, and just overall have the same schedule) and partially just because we have fun together, the three of us have almost become like brothers and sisters. I know being away this long would have been a lot harder without them being here.

We went swimming for a bit in the ocean, which was a bit cool, but felt good because it was so hot out. The ocean here still had some little seaweed bits floating around, but it cleared up (and got cooler) as you got away from the shore. There was a huge area protected by a big break wall to make it a really nice swimming area. Also apparently swimming is a skill many adults here in China don’t have, as there were several grown men wearing water wings. The other thing right by the beach was the building that appears on the Tsingtao beer bottles which was kind of neat to see.

After that, we caught an Uber back to the hotel and all wanted to rinse off after being at the beach. As we were gathering in the lobby, some of the other IBMers were coming back from dinner from a place called “The Diner.” Obviously a Western restaurant, Suanne mentioned they had their own homebrew which was all it took to sell me on trying it. Maria and Matthias agreed that after two weeks, it would be ok to eat something other than Chinese so we gave it a try.

It was definitely designed to cater to Westerners and was pretty hip inside. The food was really good as well. We shared a burger, pizza, calamari, and a salad. We ordered a pitcher of their light homebrew which definitely had a bit more flavor than the Tsingdao, but still wasn’t anything special – by my standards at least.

When I got back to the room, I got a chance to call home and actually talk to Korey a bit. She was walking to the park which meant the kids were entertained so we could actually have a conversation… which was really nice. Still being a bit tired from the celebrating, I called it an early night and got some much needed rest.