T Minus 1 Month

This past weekend, Allyssa, Nadeige, and I took a trip to Liugongdao, the islad just a few kilometers off the coast of Weihai that has been taunting me for months. The island has a long history and has been occupied numerous times by both Britain and Japan because of its strategic location in the Yellow Sea, and until recently it was off-limits to all visitors. Since then, though, the government has made quite an effort to turn it into a tourist destination. The island was honestly a little disppointing, and several people had said that might be the case, but I would have kicked myself had I not gone, considering I've lived here for almost a year and I see it every time I go downtown.

To get to the island, obviously you have to take a ferry. This was a bit overpriced, as are most tourist attractions in China. I find that often, tourists things are even more expensive here than they are back home. To get into the museum that contained little more than photos of the battles between Japan and China (as well as several rooms of photos of people visiting the museum and looking at the photos) cost 4 dollars, and a top-notch at museum back home, or at least in Europe, would not be much more than that.

Riding the boat did give us a geat view of Weihai:


Liugongdao:


An exhibition hall on the island devoted to Sino-Japanese War of 1894:


Once on the island, we spent most of our day hiking through the forests, as the weather was absolutely perfect. We discovered that the island appears to house the remnants of a zoo, though only monkeys and some birds remain. I've never seen more appalling conditions at a "zoo". I don't think there was a single living thing in the cage besides the monkeys. Look how sad he/she looks:


A replica cannon (made of concrete) on one of the island's hills:


And a few other views back toward the Weihai coast:





A few people refused to leave the island after the Chinese wrestled back control last century from the British, and some of them make their living by pulling seaweed from the ocean and then drying and selling it:



An old ship from who knows when (I don't know how it's still standing):


"Sea Mushrooms" (Anyone ever seen these before? Speaking of weird food, I ate jellyfish for the first time the other day. It was surprisingly crunchy):


Exquisite doors leading to the old British naval headquarters located on the island:



Of course, the island also featured its fair share of hilarious translations.

A trashcan with a very specific purpose:


This description sounds like something from Lord of the Rings:


Those darn hooligans are causing a ruckus again!


I didn't realize navies were ranked (even back then). I'm not sure I'd brag about eighth place, though:



Finally, a few random pictures from last week.

Rory and Julie making quite a face over a few beers. The atmosphere wasn't quite as nice as a beer garden, but the beers were actually a tad bit larger than the biggest ones I found in Germany:


A real hedgehog from later on in the night!


I think when I don't even flench when I walk into a bathroom like the one seen below, I've been in China too long. The urinal was not connected to the pipes, so urine just drips onto the floor as you're peeing and splashes onto your feet. There's no fixture for women, so they are just expected to pee on the floor (where someone else has just vomited).



Tomorrow I'm off on my final weekend trip from Weihai, as I leave here in two weeks. This time the destination is Rongcheng/Chengshantou ("The Edge of the World), which is the furthest point east on the Chinese mainland. There's a nice hike along the coast as well as a zoo in which you can buy whole chicken for about 50 cents and toss it into the lion pit (or so I've been told)! If that is the case, you will definitely see Neal-tossing-chicken-pictures in the next post.