The boat was delayed and arrived in Yantai at 8am instead of 6.30am. Yantai is the 3rd largest city in Shandong and is also a port city.

Got to Yantai bus station

and got the 9am bus (69 Yuan~USD$10) to QingDao.

From Yantai to Qingdao, it’s around 250 km.

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Most transportation companies in China are state owned, including bus companies, bus station, subways and train station.
However, the bus to Qingdao was pretty comfortable, fast and punctual. There’s a small tv screen at every row. This is not the type of service I expect from a state owned company.

Arrived at the bus station at around 12.30pm and took bus 5 to ShiLiYiYuan. From ShiLiYiYuan, I found the xiangguang er road and hiked up the hill since the hostel is in an old observatory on top of the hill. Got a dorm room for 25 Yuan~USD$4.

8 beds dorm

Qingdao is the largest city in Shandong with a population of around 7 millions. It is famous for its German style architecture because the city was a German colony in the beginning of 20th century.

Church down the hill from the hostel.

So far I had not used couchsurfing in China because I thought I knew a little more Chinese cultures. Somehow, I sent a few messages just yesterday on couchsurfing and Byron was quite nice to be my guide for today.

German governor’s building

Western style red roof building

Home of Lao She, a Chinese nobel prize nominee for literature.

Old German prison

Old municipal building

A few western style buildings at ZhongShan road

Zhan Pier, also a symbol of QingDao beer

With Byron, the man

MalaTang and RouJiaMo (10 Yuan~USD$1.4)

Check out another hostel called KaiYue. With a nice bar and the sign seems a little similar to Starbucks.

There are tons of signs like this in China.

PiCaiYuan, street selling multiple kinds of food

Took bus 25 to May 4th square, WuShiGuangChang.

May 4th movement happened in 1919 where students from Beijing protested Chinese government’s weak response to the Shandong Issue under the treaty of Versailles where Shandong was handed over from the Germans to the Japanese after the end of world war 1. The protest sparked a nationwide chinese nationalism movement.