Qingdao

Okay, so here are a couple more pictures of China. I went to Qingdao this past weekend and took a few pictures. The second picture has Qingdao in the background with the sea where they will be holding the Olympic Sailing competitions in August. Qingdao is a "new" city...built within the last 200 years. It was originally started by the Germans, so it has a lot of German architecture (which is kind of cool to see in China). They are still in the process of restoring/fixing up a lot of the buildings before the Olympics, I'm told it will look much better in July (I think it looks pretty cool now).

I went walking along the waterfront in Qingdao and noticed the tide was going out. As we came to a pier, I saw lots of people among the rocks carrying buckets. I thought they were looking for sea creatures (that's what I do when I go to the coast)....but.... no. They were looking for dinner. Apparently when the tide is low, the locals go out and collect small sea creatures and seaweed that they take home to cook for dinner. The closer I got to them and the longer I watched, I realized they really were collecting seaweed and shellfish for dinner! Wow! As I walked, I also passed a couple of people selling small crabs and shrimp on a stick. I tried to get a picture, but they turned away and hid. I'm beginning to discover that not all the Chinese want their picture taken....haha....but they sure like to take mine! haha.

Here's a funny story. As we were walking along, a lot of the Chinese people would turn and look (or stare) at us. When we smiled and said hi (ni hao), they would giggle and laugh (much like teenage girls would do when a hot guy would smile at them)! Anyways, as we were walking, I noticed this man kept taking pictures of us (in a discreet way). I couldn't figure out why. Then we were stopped by a group of people who wanted to take our picture. We had to pose for many pictures because they each wanted to be in the picture with us. Then as we finished that group, we were stopped by another group to have our pictures taken. Yep, you guessed it...I'm a celebrity here! So all those pictures you have of me...they just might be worth something! I think I just might stay here with this kind of treatment....