On one of our first journeys to Boshan, we went with our friends from the glass bottle and Storage jar factory. We flew into Qingdao Airport, not the nice new one, the original one very small and quaint where you carried you own luggage from the plane through the single customs gate. Everybody is very excited to have some 'round eyes' coming to visit their city, as this was a long time ago.
We walk out of the airport back into the sunshine, and are greeted by our two young lady hosts along with their manager. They are like two characters out of a Jane Austin novel, and have clearly never had any foreign guests visit them before, as Boshan has only just been opened up to Westerners. They fuss and flap, like two old maids trying so hard to please us, trying to help us carry our heavy bags. This is the last stage of our tours of our factories, we have been in China a month already.
They are so proud, they have one of the earliest Toyoto People Carriers. We load our luggage into the back, and get into the carrier> It is a squeeze, the two girls, the factory manager and the driver, who smiles at us all the time.
They have booked us into the best hotel on the seafront, gone now, a great shame as it had great colonial character. It was left over from the time when this part of China was German, hence the Qingdao Beer, made from rice as there was no barley available, and where the recipe for Budweiser must have originated. The front was not built up then, and we enjoyed our breakfast overlooking the sea, the people out collecting shell fish in their buckets.Our hosts arrive and we all clamber into the vehicle, with great excitement for our adventure, and what an adventure it was to be!
No comments:
Post a Comment