Im going on Holiday......
Trip Start
Mar 31, 2010
1
15
16
Trip End
Jun 24, 2010
Qingdao, Shandong, China
Saturday, May 15, 2010
This weekend trip is the best and it started right from the off.
The train- an old red and grey number just like the one that derailed, crumpled and killed all those people a couple of weeks ago- was a tale in itself a real insight into Chinese life. The dogsbody opposite us seemed to have an opinion about everything tho we couldn't understand a word of the earwigged conversation. The hysteria slowly started to rise. Mr Jobsworth- Dogsbody is at the centre of it, being the tittle tattle like Deidre Barlow in The Street, now telling the train staff and onboard police officer at length about the bag above his head. A crowd had formed now and are cowering behind one another especially when the stewardess reaches up and slowly begins to remove the bag. The policeman is barking orders to the crowd and for the first time I think, "Should I actually move?" This potential bomb- come on, its what everybody was thinking as they hid behind themselves- is right opposite me!
“Roe, roe (some rants of unamused Chinese), roe,”
Some nasty old meat.
We learn later on that the bag of meat belonged to a rather unfortunate individual- Mr Drugs. Perhaps once every couple of hours a 20 something man would stagger in through the carriage, top missing, hair drenched, head to the toilet and throw this head under the tap. He had a bruising great black eye and looked off his face on something definitely more than alcohol. Only at the end of the journey, he came to the bare spot where the now confiscated bag once lay, I am amazed he knew who he was, let alone where he put his precious bag. I often wonder if he got that back.
I cant even bring myself to get into the man that cracked open a vacuum packed bag of delightful chickens feet in the seat opposite me, who when spitting some out onto the table, (as you do here in China), spat some of the remnants of bone and claw onto the toes of my right foot. Hmmm. I also found culinary amusement in another man opposite who ate a whole loaf of bread, dry slice by dry slice, to then whip out one of these awful, pungent, processed baby pink sausages. They are not meat. Surely something that must only resemble 10% actual meat cant be sold as meat? Perhaps a more apt name would be animal product?
So our holiday! We arrive in Taishan home to the most sacred mountain in China, to quote Woody,
“Climb Mt Dongshan, Shandong Province looks really small,
Climb Mt Taishan & the whole World feels small." So off we go.............
Taishan, very bright lights and vibrant city atmosphere, not at all what I was expecting from my mystic mountain experience, let alone Transformers being screened in train station square!
Our hotel is grubby with chicks in a box by the door and Emma’s bed smells. The photo shoot with the enthusiastically and possibly hammered owner makes it great, tho does not make up for the shower over the rancid loo or the shagging next door that wakes both Emma and myself up. What a sound- it that wailing what it sounds like over here? Not for me.
Before this we head back to a local nightmarket we spied in our cab from the train. You could buy anything here and I bought V a great little bday pressie! We stay late at a restaurant, where the waiter was abused by his colleagues for inflating our bill (which we noticed), as the menu was HILARIOUS:
“Oyster confiscates the lettuce,”
"Coriander searches and confiscates the mutton residue,"
“Blow up pork rib with no result,”
"Ruthless stir-fry the clam,"
"Stir-fry before stewing with no result chicken,"
or some nonsense like this. Even though the, "Fried Fresh Milk," didnt take our fancy for dessert, we got locked out the hotel! Luckily Mr Man heard us but no time for fun and games, too tired.
Mount Taishan: Well it is photos from the off really, even had a guy staring close range with binoculars!! That is how is stayed all day as we didn’t see one other foreigner. !! I have a newfound sympathy for celebrity.
People are carrying HUMAN SIZE incense sticks and engraved padlocks are attached to railing around temples- to keep you family safe, so I took a few moments here. Too many stairs. My bloody thighs, this is a nightmare! One of the main sights, inscribing into rocks is quite something the scale of the blue, red and gold Chinese characters takes your breath away and of course, we are here probably 10 minutes longer than we needed to be due to the onslaught of the photo shoot!
Due to our newfound celebrity status we allow plenty of time to get down for our next train but the cable car down doesn’t have the fun of the way up with the Grandma getting to grips with her camera phone!
Bullet train and we are seated on the floor to Qingdao. If only the fat ba**ard on the orange stool would move a bit so the rest of us here without a seat could move, a little! Soca podcast time and I catch up on my journal, about 9 hours straight and by the end am still 2 weeks behind- I am not going to let it defeat me!
No room at the Inn and like Mary and Joseph in our modern day donkey, we taxi it around town and find a place to crash at The Observatory and the views are obviously great! Could we find food at anywhere the LP said? No. But during this insanely frustrating process we do stumble upon one of my best China moments so far. The next morning we return to our find: a fish market, and we learn, the last of its kind in Qingdao. Any fish you want there on the street. Squid, octopus, sea cucumbers, urchins, clams, oysters, snails, chickens in cages, chicks by the plastic bag full, and leeches being snipped at the end whilst still writhing and the blood being squeezed out onto the street- it turned my stomach but I couldn’t tears my eyes away, fascinating.
A random old German colonial house and church to boot in the middle of China, the most delicious augergine and prawn tempura meal and a whizz around the Qingdao (Tsingtao Beer, you may have had it in a green can) Brewery with some disturbing calorific beer facts and we are wet but back on the train to BJ. Nothing eventful apart from a young guy chatting Emma up, defying the laws of communication by forcing her to play shooting games of his phone. Romantic, I just sat on the floor in the corner headphones in and a numb bum, surely not another 5 hours to go?.....
