Qingdao... contiued

Qingdao - pronounced Chin dao - is not as plastic as I first thought. Had the wrong impression as we are staying in the business district. Which is brand new with nice wide streets and plenty of tower blocks, not very interesting.

A couple of days ago we went 'downtowm' and found the old heart of the city. Lots of German archeticture as it was occupied up until 1949. The govenors house, a church, a cathedral and the prison still stand although they are now used by the communist party.

Many of the sights that were shown on a little map were either well hidden or in different locations as we could not find them. Gave up looking after a few hours and went to Old Jack's Cafe a great little bar near the hotel.

What we did find was the following.

A cathedral, who's I don't know as the dedication was in chineese, but think St Mary as there was a statue to her in the garden.

A pagoda at the end of the pier with a lighthouse on the distant island.

A German hunting and fishing lodge overlooking No 2 beach, yes another beach with that name., although this one is officially called Taiping bay.

No 2 beach Qingdao, not to be confused with....

No 2 beach Sierra Leone.

Down on the beach and all over the rocks there were what seemed like hundreds of wedding couples with photographers posing for the pictures of their happy day. Not sure if it was a special day for weddings or it was a daily occurance but there were an awful lot of them for a daily occurance, unless every couple the weds in Qingdao has to get their photo taken on the beach under an old bylaw or ancient charter or somesuch!

Away from the beach area, which was right downtown as Qingdao sits on a promontory that juts out into Jiaozhou bay, a natural deep water harbour on the Yellow sea, we found a mixture of old and new buildings. Like most cities some were nice and some ugly, others just plain bizzare.

Mixture of old and new.

The culture market, newish in an old style. In here were many stalls selling pearls and watches at dirt cheap prices.


Bizzarely there was a family of three bridges going nowhere, and indeed coming from nowhere. Maybe a job training exercise for apprentice concrete pourers. The apprentice demolition team will be by later to take them down, maybe?

Chineese fortune tellers on the steps by the bridges to nowhere. Maybe they know what it is all about, although they won't tell unless palms are crossed with silver Yuans and a translator is employed.

All in all a pretty interesting place, but full of little chineese people and some of the worst driving I have seen outside Italy and Cairo.

At last an offer.

The day before I left, Saturday 18th, we had a third viewing of the house by a couple from Mullion, this time with their builder. This arrangement sounded very positive as they wanted to get estimates from him on work they would like to do to convert part of the house into a self-contained flat. Unfortunately the mad woman was in one of her moods caused by Lorcan an I offering a spare room to one of his cousins who had recently returned from living in Wales and was sleeping in a tent in a friends back garden. With all the spare space in our house I could not see a problem. But yet again I overestimated her capacity for compassion. She went off on one on the Friday night when we arrived home and wouldn't let go. When she is drunk she can be like a dog with a bone. Both Lorcan and myself having been down the pub for a few hours probably didn't help with her mood.

Saturday morning with the crucial third viewing looming she was threatening to put a stop to it, just out od spite. Shee seems hell bent on staying in the house and forcing us to co-habit forever. Trying hard to understand her motives in this ploy, as she constantly reminds me that I am her biggest problem and that she hates me, I asked her if '"she was still so much in love with me that she couldn't bear to have the house sold so we would have to spend the rest of out days together" as I cannot afford to live elsewhere while I am still paying the mortgage and the bills. If looks could kill I would not be writing this now but a fine wake would have been held at the Blue.

Anyway she finally calmed down and hid in her room whilst the prospective buyers came around.

The Monday after, once I was in China, they made an offer. After some negotiating on the price, and a lot of convincing the mad woman that we would not get a better one as the last one was around 18 months ago, we agree a price and with fingers crossed we will be sold up and on our seperate ways within a couple of months. Although she is still banging on about not signing any papers and will scupper the sale. God knows what is going through her head as she seems determined to scupper any chance we have on moving on with our lives.

Anyway she does make life a little bit interesting and looking back, even while in the middle of this madness I have to laugh.

Hammers and spanners....

Back in work now and instead of the cerebral stuff I have been doing for the last few years, audits on GSM networks and like stuff, I am back on the nuts and bolts and hammers and spanners of installation. Good fun and no need to think too much. No real pressure as I am number three of a two man team plus a site supervisor. I have ended up in Qingdao, China. This seems to be a very modern city with many tower blocks and lots of new ones going up. It is the site of the olympic sailing reggatta of 2008 and they seem to still be building the venue.

Olypic flame.

Entrance to sailing venue.

Downtown from hotel window

View from the site.

A new stadium being built along with flats.

On the way here I had a few hours in London whilst getting my visa, for all you that have never been, or those who have but can't get back here as some pictures of the west end.

The new statue along the Mall to the dead queen mum.

Horse guards and the eye.

A dead war hero (Nelson) in Trafalgar Square.

Two old cadgers having a chat.
(FDR and Churchil)