An Artist’s Getaway

　

At the end of the term, before going our separate ways, we decided to take a short trip together to fill the weeks between our final exams and our inevitable respective repatriations.　

　

I had managed to save up a tidy sum by singing regularly at bars and cafés, but my gentleman caller had not been able to cash in on his talents, so it was up to me, the breadwinner of the couple, to finance our trip. We were keen to go to a place with sun and beach and so we chose temperate Qingdao after coming to the tough realization that, penniless student artists that we were, we couldn’t afford to go to an actual beach destination.　

　

It’s a five-hour ride on the fast train from Nanjing to Qingdao. We picked a hostel that was perfectly suited to our needs – it was centrally located and it advertised that it was willing to exchange artistic talent for accommodation.　

　

I was able to get us bumped up to the nicest room for the lowest fees by singing every night at the hostel bar. My Romeo, for his part, put his drawing skills to use by attempting to redesign the logo of the hostel’s café. The hostel manager promised that, should he be keen on any of the designs, he would pay for it with cash. But he was a fickle man who was unable to articulate exactly what he wanted, and so Picasso’s efforts went unrewarded.　

　

Luckily, though, Qingdao is a pretty lowkey, low-budget beach destination, and so we were able to get by pretty painlessly without the extra pocket money. We spent a couple of days just walking around the old town – Da Vinci sketching the beautifully decrepit German colonial buildings as I read my book, bought postcards and chatted with local fellow loiterers. (The city was part of a German concession in the early 20th century.) We drank mostly pitchers of the city’s eponymous Tsingtao beer (“Qingdao” is the modern spelling of “Tsingtao”), which are incredibly cheap and widely available, and we ate mostly seafood snacks and dumplings.　

　

We went to Beer Street – a veritable circus ground that houses the Tsingtao Beer Museum as well as many a beer- and seafoodhawking establishment. A large sign at the front of one such establishment indicated that this was the site of the “invention” of beer way back in 1999 – a startlingly bold and very easily discredited claim. But despite the disregard for historical accuracy, and despite the fact that we had missed the beer festival season, Beer Street was a great scene.　

　

Everywhere we went, we found flat-screen televisions broadcasting soccer games and patrons that were either glued to the screens or drinking beer cheerfully out in the summer sun. The whole street felt like a lazy summer Sunday afternoon, and lazy Sunday afternoons are my favorite.　

　

But our trip wasn’t all sunshine and good times. We made the mistake of listening to our Chinese teacher, who insisted we visit a nearby beach town called Rizhao. She was either mad at us or ill-informed. I have since spoken to other would-be thrill seekers who have haplessly ended up in Rizhao, and the only good thing that has come out of our misfortune is that we have been able to commiserate about the lack of restaurants, atmosphere and things to do there. There’s very little information available in English about Rizhao’s tourist attractions, and so we spent most of our day there trying to find food or a place to swim. We came up painfully short on both counts. There wasn’t even anything good to draw or write a song about.　

　

Once back in Qingdao, our luck just got worse. We had planned to stay in the same, artist-friendly hostel for a few more days and continue our scouting and sketching of the town before quietly boarding a train and riding off into the sunset. But alas, this plan was not to be. When we got to the train station, I discovered that Casanova had not set aside any money for his return ticket, as I had understood he would. I did the math and worked out that the cash that I had left in my wallet was 100 yuan (US$15) too little to cover both of our tickets, and that left aside food and accommodation for the rest of our trip. My next tragic discovery was that the card that I thought was my bank card, packed in case of emergencies, was actually my metro card, packed by accident and utterly useless.　

　

My heart sank. I couldn’t get the words out at first. I fell very quickly into panic mode.　

　

“We’re not going to make it out of here!” I screamed maniacally. My partner in poverty was strangely calm, which I only found more unnerving. As we stood in the queue for the tickets we knew we couldn’t afford, we dug deep into our pockets for forgotten change.　

　

Once at the front of the queue, we spilled everything we had through the change slot and asked for two tickets to Nanjing. “Why don’t you just give me another 100-yuan bill?” The vendor asked impatiently. “Because we don’t have one,” I managed to say instead of shriek. After several minutes of watching us continue to empty our pockets, the vendor gave in. “Fine! Here, just take the tickets,” he grunted, and at the sound, my heart dislodged itself from my throat. We were going to make it.　

　

It may have been shorter than intended, and with a disappointing finale, but that trip to Qingdao was one of my favorite China expeditions.　

　

It’s the perfect balance of city break and relaxing beach holiday. The town is walkable, it’s cheap and friendly, and it’s a great place for both struggling artists and better-off explorers alike.

　

Zhan Bridge This picturesque structure, which ends in the water with an ancient Chinese-style pavilion, looks great from the eastern side because from this angle you can see the old town and the hills behind it.　

　

Qingdao Beach There’s all sorts of weird and wonderful things to capture here, from a beachside gym where middle-aged men do bicep curls in the sand to Chinese women wearing bathing gear that covers their face and arms in order to avoid that dreaded suntan.　

　

Tsingtao Beer Museum This building has been designed to have as many beer bottles in its façade as possible.　

　

There’s a beer bottle fountain, a beer can warehouse and plenty of beer paraphernalia besides.　

　

Zhongshan Park For the landscape artists among you, there’s the city’s centrally located park, which is complete with lakes, walkways and even cherry blossom trees that bloom in the spring.