Qingdao Travels Continued 在青岛旅游 第二部

Yushan pagoda 小鱼山

Yushan Pagoda was built in 1984

Once again, thanks to our Beijing classmates, Danni and Beijia, for giving me the impetus to finally tour the city I've been living in these past nine months. From the station we made the usual trip down to the pier, then on to Daxue lu, stopping for some freshly made baozi on the way. Daxue lu is as pretty in the spring as it is in the autumn. We made the most of the newly verdant plane trees by going to Coffee Space, a kitsch little coffee shop with a glass roof and excellent cheesecake.

Afterwards we wandered into the Yushan campus of Ocean University. I have to say, I am thoroughly jealous. It's a much more aesthetically pleasing affair than our Fushan campus, with older and less square architecture and aged twisting trees. Above it all floated the Yushan pagoda.

To get to Yushan pagoda, you need to walk out of the university campus and up a few residential streets. In true Chinese tourism style, access to the pagoda isn't free; a normal ticket costs 10RMB, students/elderly 5RMB. I would say the pagoda, and especially its view, is definitely worth the fee. Even though the structure doesn't lay claim to as much history as the incongruous hieroglyphs that decorate the walls would like to suggest, it is still a beautifully made building. From its top floor, there is a wonderful 360' view of Qingdao, looking South to the sea, East to Zhongshan park, surrounded by the wide roofs and broad trees of badaguan. A great place to take tourists to get their bearings.

Gift Street, Creative 100 礼品街 创意100产业园

I am so so sad I have only just discovered this place! Situated at 100 Nanjing Lu, Creative 100 is the home of Qingdao's blossoming culture scene. It has a pottery shop, an arts and crafts shop, tea shops, an anime merchandise shop, fancy dress shops, artists studios, home decor shops, Horcrux (the Harry Potter themed coffee shop) and a book-come-coffee-come-trinket shop. I finally managed to find some non-tacky Qingdao memorabilia in Sono Cafe (I think that's the name, I'll go back and check) for a very reasonable price.

This area fills me with so much enthusiasm for Qingdao, yet it was really disappointing to see a number of vacant shop fronts. I would love to see creative 100 bustling with as many people as it has creative energy. Qingdao's art scene is quite notably lacking, I hope Creative 100 will become the first stepping stone in path to innovation and originality that would give the city a beating heart in the art world.

On a side note, Creative 100 is also home to Redstar magazine, where I am currently interning! Check out my articles on the May Fourth Movement and Korean War films here. Get ready for June's issue too! Plug plug plug.

Firewood Court 劈柴院

I read a five-star review on tripadvisor saying Firewood Court (pichai yuan) was 'like stepping back in time'. I'm sorry, what? Maybe I got my hopes up by reading that review, but Firewood Court was more like stepping into a badly made film set. So apparently the original court was built at the end of the 19th century. Today's Firewood Court was restored in 2007, when they say 'restored' I assume they mean it tongue in cheek. The shops have wallpaper with a brick pattern in order to give some semblance of an 'antique' feeling. As for what the shops sell, there's nothing traditional about it. One was selling posters of Paris and London. You might as well go to Taidong because they won't charge as much. 

Everything else was a copy of each other, most food stalls were peddling various kinds of seafood on sticks. I bought a kind of snack that I was assured was just seafood, I ate it to find out it was pork. Clearly the shopkeepers have no qualms with lying to your face about the content. I doubt they have any hesitation lying about the freshness or quality either. Furthermore, the shopkeepers openly insult passing foreigners in Chinese. Firewood court is a horrible, hackneyed place that passes for tourism. Its narrowness, perhaps the one feature giving it authenticity, just works to the benefit of the shopkeepers as you run the gauntlet down the alley, ambushed on both sides by barking peddlars.  

The museum was shut. The "tea house" on the first floor of the museum was appalling, the centre pieces were a couple of fake concrete trees adorned with plastic leaves, characteristic of the whole artificial nature of Firewood Court. If you want to see a real restored street, visit Bopilao Old Street in Taipei, a great example of how original features can be preserved, and enhanced by modernity. I hope I'm not being too obvious when I say, I wouldn't go near Firewood Court with a ten-foot bamboo pole.  If you want to find Qingdao street food, there are many other cheaper and better quality places to buy it from. 

'Til next time folks!