Qingdao for some Tsingtao
Posted: November 7th, 2012 by Courtney
We were excited to take one of China’s high speed trains and thought a trip to the coastal city of Qingdao would make a good stop for a few days.
This is what 300k/hr looks like on the train.
We needed a bit of sea air after the pollution in Beijing. Â And what better for that then the beer capital of China and a crazy hotel to make us feel better!
Who designed this room?
The Hauke Hotel was a real surprise.  The decor was very unique, with a jungle theme in the lobby and a western/asian/ european mix in the bedroom, it was a bit out of the ordinary.  But the bed was comfortable and the breakfast buffet was plentiful, so we had no complaints.
Qingdao is also the home of China’s most well known beer, Tsing tao.  Interestingly both the city and beer are pronounced the same — Ching-dao.  We were also interested to find out that the city was part of the Imperial German Concession until the first World War and they are the ones who introduced beer to China.  We took a tour of the factory and got to sample both the unfiltered and filtered beer.
The best part of the tour was the less than perfect English translations on signs throughout the tour.
The Germans also left a few historic buildings around the city, which made for an intersting day of wondering around.
This is the Christian church built by the Germans. It survived the Cultural Revolution only because no one knew it was a church as they all just referred to it as “The Clock Tower”