As mentioned in our last travelogue, Qingdao is a considered one of China's premier coastal cities. Our second day in Qingdao set out to put that reputation to the test!
We began the day by taking Qingdao's very economical public bus system all the way across town to visit the Qingdao Polar Ocean World. This large amusement facility is in Qingdao's "new district", in contrast to the "old town" where our hotel, and the old German settlement" are located. It's focused primarily on polar animals, such as sea lions, penguins, and the like, but it has animals and fish from the world over, including the highly entertaining Beluga whales!
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| Setting out for the day... beautiful blue skies I also might note! |
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| The Entrance |
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| Beluga! |
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| Feeding goldfish with a milk bottle |
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| Arrr, sea turtles, mate! |
The biggest reason for the popularity of this park is more for its live shows, featuring the aforementioned Beluga whales as well as dolphins, sea lions, and mermaids. But it was a challenge sifting through the sea... of visitors!
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| Dolphins flying in formation... |
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| Real mermaids!? |
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| A neat trick to get all the fishies to swarm around the mermaids |
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| The kids may have enjoyed the gift shop more than anything. |
After plowing through the sea of visitors, we took a "black taxi" to the nearby Olympic Sailing Center. We took the black taxi because non of the other taxis were willing to use the meter (which, we found, was far more common up here in the North than we ever had to deal with back in Shanghai). But the black taxi got us to our destination on time and for a price that my BaiduMaps app said was reasonable.
So, what is this Olympic Sailing Center? Well, back in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, most of the sailing events took place not in Beijing, but rather in coastal Qingdao (which would make sense, considering Beijing is landlocked). Today, tourists can take sailboat tours of the Qingdao coast, which we did, and just as the sun was setting, so we got some choice views of the ocean!
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| The Sea Goddess Mazu (who incidentally is also worshipped on the island of Taiwan) |
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| Silhouette shot at sunset |
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| Fire! |
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| Some corny exhibits line the area around the port... but they are good fun! |
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| Traversing the very steep, high, and narrow bridge linking the Mazu statue with the mainland |
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| The Mazu statue (and the bridge), lit up at night! |
Stay tuned for Part III!
