It was 0530 on the 20th of April when I had to move my ass out of the bed, reluctantly. It was so cold and tugged yourself, under your blanket to sleep is the best!
My first breakfast in China was very ‘memorable’. From the picture above, I believe you notice that layer of oil on the surface on the food which really outshine itself. Yeah, if you ask me what have I learn about the food in China, there are only three words to describe: oily, salty, spicy.
This is the hotel that we stayed on the previous night. If I am not mistaken, this is one of the 4-star hotels in Jinan. I find this hotel different from the ones that I stayed throughout my whole life; be it in Malaysia or China. Most hotels have their dining room for their customers either at the ground floor or the first few floors of the building. However, in this case, this hotel has its dining room on the highest floor! Imagine if you can have your breakfast while enjoying the morning view of the city above the ground level (and that is if you were able to get a place near the windows lol).
Our first stop for the day in Jinan was Da Ming Lake (DaMing Hu). ‘Finally we are going to have a real vacation in China’ was what I thought :D
This place of attraction is rated 4As by the China National Tourist Attractions Quality Evaluation Committee. Should be the highest rating. Anyway, below are the pictures of the place :)
The map of Da Ming Lake
Easy for human life to age, hard for heaven; Year after year festival of the Double Ninth. Now the Double Ninth again. Battlefield fragrant with yellow flowers. Year after year the autumn wind is harsh, not like the spring, but better than the spring: endless river and sky, many thousand miles of frost --- The poem was written by Mao Ze Dong in 1929
Da Ming Hu
Next was Bao Tu Spring Park (Bao Tu Quan).
The entrance
I have no idea why these fishy are gathering at one spot
Closer view. Does it seem to you that the water is hot? The answer is not. The temperature of the water is always at 17 Celsius.
While the oldies were all shopping at the souvenir shop nearby, I strolled around the place by my own, captured few more pictures before we had to get on the bus.
What’s the next stop? No more stops for us over the next five hours as we had to be on our way to Qingdao. Yeah, we had to take another 5-blardy-hour ride after our pathetic 6-hour flight and 5-hour ride yesterday. I guess this is how it goes if you travel in China with a travel agency, huh?
The very first petrol station that I saw ever since I landed China. Well, in fact, the tour guide told us that there are not many petrol station around in China, unlike Malaysia. And, imo, SINOPEC is the monopolist in providing petrol for transportation in China.
Around 2.5 hours had passed where we made a stop at WeiYang for lunch. After lunch, the tour guide brought us to Yang Jia Bu of WeiYang. This place is famous for its kites making and kites flying activities and competitions. Well, this stop is not in our package. We had to ‘extra’ pay (to the tour guide and his company) for it.
You see, the weather here was very cold. It was too cold that both my camera’s and phone’s batteries lost their lifespan very fast. My camera’s battery died on me when we were at WeiYang. Therefore, I did not take as many pictures as typical me do.
We reached Qingdao around 1800 (finally T_T) and before we went for our dinner, we had our first stop at Qingdao Olympic Sailing Centre. It is even colder here in Qingdao than in Tianjin, Jinan and WeiYang! My camera’s battery reached to its limit and therefore, the pictures below are the only shots that I could take. I bought an additional 2G memory card for my camera (which it was not found useful in the end). Sigh. Should have thought of buying additional battery instead.
Oh ya! Before we could walk around the place, we went to a public toilet nearby and HOLY SHIT! Smelly! DAMN smelly! If a bird flew over the place, the smell could kill it instantly lol It may be very very smelly but fortunately, the toilet is not very dirty.
See the villas above? That is where most of the rich people stay in Qingdao xD I stalked at one of the villas because I saw all the lights were turned on. Maybe I was hoping to see a single man inside? lol
As I was saying, mostly the food in China are oily, salty and spicy. It was unfortunate for the restaurant to have our tour group as one of their customers. The oldies did a lot of complaint on the food being too salty to our tour guide. Poor fella. He sort of guaranteed them that he would always inform the chefs to not cook the dishes neither salty nor oily. Oh! And not spicy as well :p
p/s: Point Ones! Let’s have a vacation together! Maybe Hong Kong? Or Macao? Or Bali! xD
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