Journey To China: Second Stop–Qingdao (Part 2)

Journey To China: Second Stop–Qingdao (Part 2)

This second part is all about the view of Qingdao. Qingdao is a beach city, the buildings and the beautiful beach view is good! Let’s see what's the famous view in Qingdao!

Lao Mountain: This mountain is the biggest mountain around the beach coast in China! When you stand on the top of the mountain, you can literally see the whole view of Qingdao- the beach and the sea, the old street, the other mountain and even the small shop near the beach! Detailed introduction of Laoshan Natural Scenic Area: Laoshan is located in Qingdao, Shandong Province, and is a famous tourist mountain in China. Known as the "first famous mountain on the sea", Laoshan is located on the coast of the Yellow Sea, with a main peak of 1,133 meters. It stands tall above the sea, with mountains and sea connected, majestic mountains and dangerous gorges, beautiful waters and strange clouds. Since ancient times, it has been called "the cave residence of immortals" and "the house of the spirits". 

There is also a record in Qi Ji that "Although Mount Tai is high, it is not as good as Laoshan in the East China Sea". In the past, Qin Shihuang and Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty climbed this mountain to search for immortals, and Emperor Minghuang of the Tang Dynasty also sent people into the mountain to refine medicine. Literati and celebrities of all dynasties left their traces here, which is known as "the second largest Taoist Quanzhen jungle in the world". When you go climb Laoshan, which is Lao Mountain, you can either climb by yourself like hiking or ride the “sky car”. “Sky car” is a super common view in China, because whenever there are mountains that can climb, there are always “sky cars”. When you are tired and need a rest, you can climb to the halfway point of the mountain and eat or drink there. There are a lot of fast food restaurants on the halfway point of the mountain. You can buy different kinds of bubble teas and different kinds of traditional snacks, even ice cream that have their own decoration on it (Most of the decorations are about Lao Mountain).A little tip for this view is that because this is a famous site to visit, don’t go on Chinese holidays. Tons of tourists can make you lost and get hurt.

Shilaoren Beach: This beach gives warm and comfortable winds to everyone. This is the most famous and best beach to let the Qingdao people relax. When you are sitting on the beach and just chill out, the beach, the wind and the ocean, even the noise around you can take you to an amazing adventure. Shilaoren Beach is one of the largest beaches in Qingdao. When I go to Shilaoren Beach, I usually go to the ocean and swim. After that, my family would go to the mall near the beach and go shopping or have a super delicious dinner. Watching the sunset, eating the barbecue, how amazing was that! Near the Shilaoren Beach, it’s the May 4th Square, which I’m going to talk about later. All the famous sites are near or in that area around the beach. “The beach is free and open! Shilaoren, as its name suggests, has a reef shaped like an old man standing in the sea. The beach is very clean. The weather was very good on the day I went there, the sea water was clear, and the sun was shining just right. I took off my shoes and walked on the shallow waves on the beach. The warm and cool touch, caressing the soles, toes and insteps of my feet, was particularly comfortable. The sea and sky in the distance are connected, which is very suitable for photography.” Said by one of my family members. 

Maybe the ocean or the sea is not as clear as the sea in Boston, but you can definitely enjoy it there. The beach which is the sand in Shilaoren is super good, when you step on it, you could feel the warm and the comfortable of this sand.  If you compare the beaches in Qingdao and Shilaoren together, I think Shilaoren is the best choice to go. It is Qingdao's first large beach! Here is a little tip for you: be super careful in the sea. Your parents need to see you, if the wind is super strong, you could get hurt in the sea! But you can just enjoy and chill on the sand and make sand castle with your friends!

Qingdao Trestle: Maybe the most important and classic site of Qingdao is the trestle. Every single card from Qingdao has the trestle on it, it’s the most exciting and beautiful trestle. The red cap with the grey wall has the best combination, a long old road that can lead you to a mystery history of Qingdao Trestle, there’s many famous buildings that can represent Qingdao Trestle, even the sea around it is an important place to take photos with each other. The location of Qingdao Trestle is super positive too, it’s just near Qingdao Railway Station. Qingdao has three main train stations: Qingdao Railway Station, Qingdao North Railway Station, and Qingdao West Railway Station. But the oldest Station is still Qingdao Railway Station, its building was built when Germany still controlled Qingdao, it’s an old German style building. 

When you are traveling to Qingdao by train, you can go to the Trestle right when you go out of Qingdao Railway Station. Don’t worry about your luggage, just call a cab and let them get your luggage to your hotel. Maybe you are thinking that there’s no other interesting part of Qingdao Trestle, but no, you could bring a camera and start snapping pictures of the beautiful sea in Qingdao! Here are some tips for you when you visit Qingdao Trestle: Because of the popularity of this site, many visitors come on holidays or weekends. If you really want to visit this place, you could go on Christmas or another holiday that doesn’t happen in China. You also can just order a tour guide and they can lead you to Qingdao Trestle. Sometimes, there could be people on weekdays too, so be careful of that.

Yingyu Alley: If you like shopping and taking photos, then come to this alley! If you ask some of the Qingdaonese, they may not know where it is and even don't know about this place! As you can see, there aren't so many people going to Yingyu Alley compared to the people that are going to Qingdao Trestle, but still, that’s a wonderful place to visit. When you walk into it, there are lots of small and beautiful stores selling clothes, trinkets, ice cream and even bread! If you want to buy clothes, then buy it in Qingdao, whatever store you choose, the price and material compared to other cities is cheaper and better. The clothes in Qingdao are more like Korea style, you can buy a lot of clothes that are the same as  the people in a lot of Korean shows like Black Pink, G-idle and a lot of that. If you are tired of all the shopping, you can go buy a crème brûlée, that’s a dessert you can enjoy with ice cream. The flavor-salt with a little sweet, the touchable feeling- soft but a little melt and the tasty feeling- cold and hot for the crème brûlée. 

If your friends are good photographers, you are definitely going there. There are some particular walls that you can take photos of and some beautiful stairs you can take pictures of too. Even though the price of clothes are cheap and convenient, the trinkets are more expensive than that. If you like the trinkets, you can just buy it on a buying app called TaoBao. On the app, the trinkets are way more cheap than the actual thing in the store. Here is a little tip for the site: the shops on the alley are opening at ten AM, but you can go early to snap photos of everything around the alley. Because this is a local “local alley” (That means many local people went there to look around), there aren’t many people during any period of time, so you can go whenever you want to enjoy the weather and the view!

Eight Great Passes: Many Qingdaonese think this site is a “Love center”. This site has a lot of parks and courtyards. There are lush flowers and trees everywhere, and the trees on the roads are different in all seasons. There are peach trees on the street, which bloom in spring and are pink like a ribbon; crape myrtles, which bloom in summer; maple trees, he frost dyes the maple red, adding beauty in the autumn; rows of cedars, which are evergreen all year round; crabapples... From early spring to late autumn, the flowers bloom continuously, and it is known as the "Flower Street". There is a new peach forest that is landing on the north corner of Eight Great Passes, which makes another wonderful place for people to picnic in the spring.  

In the southwest corner, green cypresses are lined up on both sides of the road, and the pairs of green cypresses form "private rooms", which are loved by many couples and have a lot of beautiful flowers. “Love Center” this name came into this amazing view. In this area, there are more than 200 buildings, including architectural styles of more than 20 countries such as Russia, Britain, France, Germany, United States, Japan and Denmark. It is known as the "International Architecture Expo". This place has always been a place full of tourists. Eight Great Passes is one of the largest wedding photography centers in China. Almost every day, dozens of newlyweds take photos of the seaside and green land in this remarkable area. Now comes to the tips: this site is like the main place around Qingdao, there are the sea, the mall, May 4th Square all near and around Eight Great Passes. But, if you really went to Qingdao, if you only have three to five days to visit, I suggest you to visit other places than this, because this is more often visited by elders. But if you have time, you are welcome to visit this beautiful place.

May 4th Square: When you walk to this place at night, it’s a different and magical world. At night, the lights of May 4th Square are all up. If there is a full moon in the sky, then you are lucky, you can see the moon’s reflection in the water. Beside the square it’s the Olympic Sailing Center, you can see the sea, the light and all the couples that are standing on the sea bench. When I asked my grandparent about why so many Qingdaonese and visitors come to this beautiful square day and night they said: “Because of the events and of course about their popularity. The sea area outside May Fourth Square was the venue for the sailing events of the 2008 Summer Olympics, while the inland area of May Fourth Square is the Qingdao New East Business District. To the north is the seat of the Qingdao Municipal People's Government, and at the northwest intersection is the May Fourth Square subway station. Therefore, many businessmen need to get through this area for work and visitors can just come right after they get off the train. 

Also, on sunny days, many young couples often gather in the square, and kites fly in the sky.” If you guys are worried about food, there is the biggest mall in Qingdao that you can visit just nearby. In the mall, there is a super popular restaurant called nuan shi. Their food is not like other Qingdao food, more like the combination of Qingdao and Southeast Asia foods. It’s super delicious, and my uncle’s uncle-the boss of this restaurant said there are more than five restaurants around Qingdao and you can find it everywhere. After the walk to May 4th Square, you can buy a drink in the mall and go straight to enjoy the popular restaurant-nuan shi! A tip for this is to bring a coat when you want to walk to this place at night, because at night, Qingdao’s weather is super cold, you are gonna be freezed  when you just wear a t-shirt.

University Road: As you can see in the name, this is a road and the name is “University road”. Teenagers love to go on that road, because there are so many coffee shops and small dessert or trinket shops along the side of the road. This road is the best for photography for weddings or just normal shooting photos for friends. Along the both sides of the university road, there are drawings of Hayao Miyazaki on the wall, and it’s a famous place to go in the summer. There is also a wall at the end of this road, it’s a reddish wall and it’s also super famous in the winter. University Road is the earliest modern road in Qingdao's history. It was built during the German occupation period and was originally named Opast Street (Dongguan Street). In 1924, it was renamed because of the private Qingdao University on the border. The road is built along the Qingdao River. There are countless red-walled and yellow-tiled buildings and French plane trees. There are historical landmarks such as the Ocean University of China, Qingdao Art Museum, and Lao She's former residence- an old but famous writer in China. You can go to this road in the morning and buy some drinks for yourself and go to the art museum afterward. Here are some tips for you: just as I said, there might be a lot of people day and night just for shooting some pretty pictures, so be careful to pick the right times. Also, if you are expecting to have lunch or eat at any big restaurant there then I’m sorry, there isn’t any. There are only coffee shops and dessert shops by the road. But you can always enjoy the dessert and coffee there, even if the weather is bad, you will always have a place at the coffee shop. 

Personally, I think Qingdao is super similar to Boston- they are both near the sea, they both have wonderful history sites and of course, the food is all based on seafood. Qingdao is the best place to relax from work or school, go and enjoy your trip!

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