Duck!

Last night was Axel's farewell party at a restaurant specialising in dumplings. I'm not dumplings' biggest fan but there were some quite nice, albeit anonymous, dishes including sweet and sour battered pork and a stew type thing that was almost nice, except for a funny twang... But plenty of Qingdao beer was flowing. Becka and I are on a mission to develop a liking for beer- you know, integrate with the culture n everything. Plus our normal thirst-slakers of vodka and whisky are a) rare, b) expensive and c) usually fake when you do get it. Fake smirnoff vodka mushes your brain. So we dilligently set about practising and I have to say, bit by bit, I'm getting used to the flavour.

It was sad to say goodbye to Axel-he's off to Beijing to work there. The expat population in Qingdao is fairly fluid so there are a lot of goodbyes which is sad- but the good thing is that wherever you go in China, you'll know somewhere who has moved there from here!

I finally found some crispy aromatic duck! Very Chinese :P Although the pack came with the head. Doesn't come with a head in the UK.

Had a fail moment at lunchtime. We were eating rice noodles, which come in a broth. The idea is to get the noodles from the broth into a small bowl. But they are slippery little bastards and as I was hauling some into my bowl I lost control and one slithered away, pulling the rest away, and before I knew it a mass of noodles came slipping out onto the floor. I tried to catch them, which was a bad idea as they were boiling hot, whilst shrieking Help Help!

I let them cool down and then grabbed the mass from the floor and plonked them back into the broth bath. This is China, after all.

The Chinese bus drivers have pot plants on their dashboards. Rather cute.

In Starbucks, in order to get to a western plug, my computer cable was across a walkway. In the UK they'd have fluttered about it being a health and safety hazard but here, they figure people can negotiate a cable in their path. This philosophy is also in use with manholes. In the UK we have them all covered up but here, they assume we can avoid falling down big holes by using our light-sensors. Which is fair enough, no?