My first day around Qingdao, and I am exhausted. Honestly I must have walked 20 miles today. The last one of which was up a mountain. Please kill me.

There were a few places I had to see in Qingdao, but the top two on my list was the Chinese Naval Museum and the Tsingtao Brewery. The Naval Museum was right down the road from my hostel, so I figured it would be a good place to start.

The thing is, this isn't really a Naval Museum. It's more like "We're putting our old shit here and are charging people to look at it." In a way that's cool. There weren't too many people there at 10am on a weekday, but those that were were climbing all around on the stuff, and the one or two guards there didn't seem to mind. So you know, when in Rome. They have 3 old warships you can go on, and I was completely alone save this frigate where I found these two Chinese guys from Guangzhou. Being alone in the dark corridors of a warship that hasn't been occupied in 50 years is a little creepy. So like any member of the Scooby Gang would do, I decided to do some exploring. The pic was taken from the top of the radar array on a Chinese destroyer. In retrospect it was probably fairly dangerous because the floor was a thin piece of sheet metal that was almost completely rusted out, and I was quite, quite high up. But hey, I lived, and got a great view of the ocean and the city.

After checking out a few parks and eating some noodles on the beach, the Tsingtao Brewery was next on the list. When I got my ticket and brochure it was in English, which I guess is to be expected even though I asked for everything in Chinese. I also asked if she had a German one to pick up for dad, and I was surprised she said no considering the Germans built the damn place.

The brewery itself is pretty cool but I'd be angry if I paid any more than 50 RMB for it. You can blow through it in about an hour, but there are some cool things to see. It's more of a brewing history museum than a look behind the scenes, as you only get to see a small part of the modern factory through a window in one room. I was a little bummed by that, I was hoping they'd show you how they make the stuff from start to finish. About halfway through the walkthrough you stop off in a bar and they pour you beer straight from the factory, unpasteurized  I don't really like Tsingtao that much but that was some of the smoothest beer I've ever had. Still too light for my tastes, but very good regardless. You get another glass at the end, and I guess if you are buzzed throughout the whole thing you would have a better opinion of it. Of special note was the "drunk house", which messed with perspectives to make it really hard to walk in. There's a TV outside for the people to laugh at you while you stumble all around. And finally the area around the brewery is teeming with German beer gardens, which was pretty nice to see.

There were a couple more detours along the way (I climbed a mountain, and found an indoor shopping mall that looks like Spain), but nothing really warranting explanation aside from the pics on Facebook. Overall my impressions of Qingdao are pretty positive. It's quite hilly, and bikes are actually illegal here except in certain areas. Really it looks more like Europe than an Asian city, so it has a very un-China like feel to it. It is however surprisingly walkable if you have the energy for hills, as it covers much less area than say, Hangzhou. When they finish their metro it's going to be amazing – because right now, it's already pretty close.