Sky and Aja's Great Adventure

中国 China
We made it safely to China on the slow boat from Incheon! We barely made it to the ferry terminal on time. From the train station, we eidn't know where to go, my front tire was flat, ans people we asked said it was very far. We left our bikes unloked on a busy street and flagged a taxi, hoping we would not return to our bicycles.
At the terminal, there was nowhere to exchange money and Korea suprised us with its price tag, so we had just less than enough cash to buy our tickets. I had to use my credit card, and am not sure if I exhausted the credit I had overpaid my balance with before I left Japan.
Our boat to China was even larger than the ship we took from Japan! From the enterance, there were two escalators leading up to the three stories of passenger ship, perhaps 40 feet above the water.
In the harbor, little silver fish swam along the edge of the boat and seagulls flew in big circles hoping to catch cheetohs from young passengers. The ship's huge engines thundered and sent a steady black cloud downwind.
People waited on deck, excited, taking pictures, feeding the birds, leaning over the rails and making new friends. One boy with a Japanese-style blowdried and died hair wearing first a grey and then a pink version of the same shirt that said something in Engrish about alcohol, cigarettes and party was taking pictures of himself for most of the trip. We watched him standing on deck with his cell phone, striking cheezy poses, and sometimes asking other passnegers to take his picture for him.
As the sun set, we were passing an island half hidden by fog. The sun set behind it giving its rocky shillouette a colorful background (see the picture in a earlier post). We learned from a drunken Korean that it was a North Korean island, "a sad story". Perhaps it was North Korean. Perhaps that's why we were heading South at sunset and why the trip to Qingdao took 18 hours while the trip from Fukuoka took only six.
At night, we saw a horizon full of light. It looked almost like a far off city. The whole horizon glowed. It took hours to pass, and turned out to bebe a huge array of ships shining huge floodlights into the water. We assumed they were fishing for Squid.
In the morning, our first sight of China was a rocky island with a few trees on top and dozens of container ships on their way to stock the world's shelves with China's junk. Then, a thick fog surrounded usand from the deck, the water was barely visible. I didn't see anything until our ship was just off the coast of Qingdao. The fog was still thick and only the tops of skyscrapers were visible, floating in the grey morning fog.

Past customs and onto the street, on solid ground with a new group of friends, I traded some Won with a Korean named Song. The five of us tried unsuccessfully to flag a taxi until an older couple with a rickety van offered to take us to town for 30 Yuan. We wound up in a hotel with a fancy reception and small musty rooms with crickets in the sink on a dingy crunbling street in the center of downtown. China is poorer than I'd expected. Buildings everywhere are patched together, laundry is hanging everywhere people can manage to hang it, sometimes blocking the sidewalks, the sidewalks have missing stones, old people sit on rugs and plastic chairs along the streets, there are no stop lights, old crappy cars are all you see. We went into a large bank to change money, the roof and high walls inside had chipping paint and old water stains.
Qingdao is one of China's wealthiest cities in one of China's wealthiest provinces. An old German colony with disintegrating old German architecture adn good German beer. A sprawling old city with wide sidewalks and people selling things everywhere. The only place Aja can think to compare it to is, maybe, Cuba. It looks poorer than Chilie, she says. Perhaps this is what all cities will eventually look like.

We can't read menus and are doing our best to avoid water, undercooked meat, washed vegetables, and anything that could make us sick. No fresh food until we leave!