Although in the current situation (due to the coronavirus) China is not accessible (among others), we hope that this situation will be resolved over time, so I would like to write a short recommendation for those who want to visit places with no trace of tourism.
Qingdao was chosen by chance, we wanted to stop for 3 days at the end of our trip where we could rest before flying home from Beijing. So, traveling back from the lower east coast, we made a detour to this city on the coast of Yellow Sea (with 9 million inhabitants), which is 21 times larger than Budapest and 7 times larger than London. This is a stunningly huge city; it cannot be explored in 3 days or even in 3 months. The city is mainly known for China's number one export beer, Tsingtao, which we tried there. Okay, not only did we try it here, we also enjoyed it in other Chinese cities, along with the locals. 🙂
What caught our eye immediately when we arrived, was that there weren’t much people on the streets. The usual Chinese crowd we experienced in Beijing or Hangzhou wasn’t here. There was no one along the long way. This population was opposed to the fact that the buildings were high like skyscrapers, but also uninhabited. The whole place looks like a ghost town, which made it more interesting than disappointing for me. As anywhere else in China, we see a lot of construction sites here too, which, in terms of speed, are much faster than here in Hungary. 🙂
When it comes to subway transport in China, it works flawlessly, it is completely transparent and everything is accurately labelled in English. It is clearly the most recommended form of transportation, especially for foreigners. The only disadvantage (but we can't avoid that in China anyway) is that you have to walk a lot, when changing, so it's useful to be in a good condition.
However in Qingdao, we were in a part of the city where there wasn’t any subway line, so we had to do it in a much more hardcore way: we had to take the bus. Buses in China don’t have English signs at all, information boards at stops are all in Chinese. So either we learn Chinese before the trip or we do it risky and rely on good luck or the help of some Chinese people who speak a little English. We usually asked for help in the hotel, where they wrote down the name of the desired destination on a paper note in Chinese. Then we showed it to the bus driver. We didn't even know where to get off, but most of the drivers were so kind as to shout back when we stopped at our destination. Once, we spent a whole day traveling around the city to find the beach (Qingdao is so huge that it is not worth walking around looking for a beach) because we always got on the wrong line, in the end we just laughed how inexpert we were. 🙂
After all these vicissitudes, we finally found a beach, not the one we originally wanted, but after traveling the whole day, we would have been satisfied with anything.
It turned out that the beach was not a bad choice at all. That was Yinshatan Beach. Seeing it through European eyes, it was not attractive, because we were not allowed to swim and no one was there, and there were no deck beds and chairs, but in return the whole beach was ours. It was an undisturbed, beautiful beach. We collected shells for hours and listened to the roar of the sea. For a very long time, I have not felt the recharging power of what I felt there and then. The combination of sunshine, sea, and undisturbed calmness created almost a zen-like state.
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