Qingdao Beerfest

The pics really tell the story

08.28.2009 - 08.31.2009 75 °F
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Ok, so its been a while since i've posted and in my head i've moved beyond the beach and beer in Qingdao to business & golf in Shanghai, so I'm not going to write too much about the weekend.

Qingdao is a beautiful city on a penninsula overlooking the Yellow Sea. Its the home of Tsingtao beer, which is really the english spelling for Qingdao (so now that you are in the know, use the proper name in China). The city has a lot of german influence (hence the beer) and the government has pumped a lot of money into it, so its really nice.

We had beerfest headquarters at the Shangri-La - i'm not sure how many of us were staying there, but I'd maybe guess 30 or so. We spent our days at the beach drinking beer out of plastic bags and straws. How does that work, you ask? Well the beer stays perfectly cold in the kegs, even though they are not in ice (is it magic? or just because we drink it fast?). You fill the plastic bag with beer and then poke a hole through the bag and drink away. It helps to drink quickly or go for many smaller pours to keep the beer cold once its in the bag.

You can also play a game with the bags where you try to pop other people's bags with your straw (sneak attack works best) and then they have to drink/chug the rest of the beer as it flows out:

The first day's weather was decent, but the second (and official beach day) was rainy but we made the most of it with our umbrella city.

Sunday was absolutely beautiful and everyone pretty much chilled at the beach until the moment they left for the airport (we stayed til monday). This is the best picture of the weekend and pretty much sums up the beach environment in China:

That is actually a lady!

For the most part, the Chinese people at the beach did not try to hang out and party with us. The did do a lot of staring, but then again so did we. That all changed when Steve arrived on the beach on Sunday - people were coming up to him all day asking him for pictures.

We did have an unsucessful trip to the beerfest on Saturday night. It was crazy big - tons of giant beer tents, both Chinese and Foreign brands - with lots of sweet Chinese entertainment. It started off on a sour note, though, when one of the girls in our group got her boob grabbed by some drunk dude right when we walked in, so that put me on edge a little. Then, as Genny, Chris & I paused for a picture we lost everyone. Seriously, we could not find them anywhere and even a borrowed cell could not help us to locate the group. So we walked around and left. Without any beer. FAIL. Ugh, but here are some sweet photos:

Gotta rep the homeland!

Genny and I went to the Jusco to stroll and laugh at Chinese things. We did end up doing some "research" when we saw a lone pair of women's golf shoes in the adidas store (no men's pairs, though). We've come to find out that the stores will put out random stuff they ordered and still haven't sold, with no regard for the products actual use. And someone will probably buy them and wear them purely for fashion.