China trip '05: Qingdao

Red brick roofs

Seashore

Qingdao is most famous for its beer, but it has much else to recommend it. It was annexed by Germany at the turn of the (last) century (hence the beer), and still has a fair number of red-brick European-type mansions. It's a seaside town, and it seemed to me to have a more relaxed, less urgent tempo than Wuhan, let alone Beijing. An excellent spot for a weekend getaway.