Monday.

It was raining all day today so we decided to do something indoors. Like a movie! Unfortunately, that meant we had to see Transformers 2. I would have picked almost any other movie over that except for, like, Ice Age 3 in 3D.
Oh wait, that was the only other choice.
So we watched Transformers 2 with Chinese subtitles, and discovered the most interesting thing about Chinese movie theaters: assigned seats! That’s right, you get to choose your seat when you buy a ticket and then your seat number is printed on it. This system would normally not work out for me at all because I’m always late to movies, but since we didn’t know the times before we got there we were insanely early. Best seats in the house for the worst movie I’ve ever seen. Oh well, it was worth it to hear the guy next to us cheering whenever something blew up. That’s my people.

Letter to Beds.

Dear China,
Why are all of your beds so hard? I would very much like to visit the rock quarry where you mine your mattresses from, because I didn’t realize it was possible to create a box spring out of solid stone. There are a few things I won’t miss when I go home, China, and back pain is one of them.

Dreaming of feathertops,
Kelly

I've declared my independence from drinking out of cups.

Happy Fourth of July everyone! Turns out there aren't very many celebrations to attend in China which honor the birth of American independence, but we did eat meat on a stick for breakfast, drank a beer from a bag, and saw one floating paper candle in the sky... which is kind of like a firework? Oh, and as I was sitting here blogging, a nice Chinese couple just gave me a slice of watermelon. Couldn't ask for much more. Hope your day is filled with BBQ, cold beverages, and friends.

Beer by the Bag.

We have discovered the most amazing thing about Qingdao. Beer by the bag. That’s right, because the Tsingdao brewery (its pronounced the same as the city just a different spelling because they were trying out an earlier form of pinyin at the time) is based here, beer is even cheaper and more accessible than other cities we’ve been to. The corner stores take a plastic bag like you get in the produce section, fill it with beer and put a straw in the top. They sell it by weight, and 1 kilo costs about 50 cents. Good lord, the trip may be all down hill from here.

I guess I couldn’t take a picture worth 2000 words.

So here’s my latest story on the class website. Something absurd seems to have happened on this trip…I’ve started using words. So many words in this last story, in fact, that I forgot to take pictures. Totally embarrassing. Luckily Dawn covered my ass with a nice photo she shot. The story is kind of a culmination of a lot of different information I gathered during the trip, and hopefully begins to explain how complex and contradictory China can be.

Plano meets Qingdao

Dear Indian restaurant owner lady,
Thank you for making a delicious chicken curry, and for having the greatest hairdo I have yet to witness in China. I thoroughly enjoyed my lunch for both reasons.

Completely in awe,
Kelly

Friday.

We moved into the new hostel today, and its quite an improvement. The AC works, bathroom doesn’t smell (seriously China, you gotta look into the plumbing situation), and there’s a nifty little lounge that serves coffee and beer and has free pool. And best of all, there’s a washing machine. Brilliant. I walked down to the beach this morning to read and people watch. Apparently the beach is much like the public parks where all the athletic seniors go to work out. I saw old men crab walking, making sand angels, playing hacky sack, and generally toning up their tanned little bodies. As Mike commented,”I’ve never seen 70-year-old men that are so cut.” For real. These guys are working it. For an idea of what the scene looks like, you should watch Caitlin’s video from Shanghai. Be sure to factor in the speedos. I'll try to document this in more detail tomorrow.