Crashing waves, not cars

Tuesday was pretty much exactly what it was supposed to be, and I had to keep reminding myself of how ideal it was throughout the day because I did get a little tired at points. Started waking up to everyone else’s alarms in the morning and finally decided to get going on my day, in fact as soon as possible. Was out the door in about 15 minutes wandering towards an unknown bus stop. (The hostel people kinda give directions, but they’re mostly “walk down that road, and you’ll see it!” which you won’t.) Luckily, I’ve gotten used to asking an average of 4 people every time I’m trying to find something, and each one led me closer until I found it.

Got to the right stop to catch a bus to Lao Shan (it’s a mountain) and started asking around to find out where I could do so. Finally asked a woman who turned out to be a tour guide, and paid $10 for a 9am-5pm tour with 6 other people, one of whom was an adorable Chinese child and one of whom was a young woman who took a while to warm up to me, but in time she was taking my hand and making me sit next to her. I win them over every time. We traveled about in a shuttle van, which was very pleasant with the windows open.

The day went something like this: We first stopped at a temple that was just like every other temple I’ve seen here, then at the TV tour, which thinks it’s the Oriental Pearl, when it SO isn’t, and is also the Olympic Hall, since the sailing competitions are going to be here. Ascended the tower, which was even less exciting than the OP, but I’m not complaining. We stopped at a place that wanted to sell us pearls, and then went on to Lao Shan.

We took one bus up a ways to…um…a cable car I guess. (I always want to call it a Sky Ride but that’s just at Disney parks, isn’t it?) It was really cool, and none of the cars fell off. From the top of the cable car, we took an hour’s hike up the hill/mountain/whatever and came back down. It was really pretty, especially since the view below was a bunch of misty mountains and the ocean. I realized that I seem to think I have some special claim on being amazed by oceans and mountains since I’ve had limited contact with them…somewhat justified, right?

On our way back, we stopped at a tea-tasting and a place where you could sample (and buy) all sorts of dried seafood. Pretty much everyone fell asleep on the way back, and then we parted ways.

Since I had spotted an SPR Coffee (a coffee shop whose lettering is suspiciously similar to that of Starbucks) and Mary had asked me to check it out if I saw one, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. Feeling rejuvenated, I wandered around the waterfront, and since I was wearing sneakers instead of flip-flops like yesterday, climbed out on some rocks to read for a while. Really idyllic. Night began to fall and I went to a restaurant I had spotted yesterday with outside tables overlooking the water and cheap seafood you selected out of buckets of water. Delicious but salty, accompanied by a cheap but not terribly delicious Qingdao (Tsingtao) beer. Walked back to my hostel from there, very proud to have found it.