Zhanqiao Pier on Beach 1

One of Ron's readers took us on a tour of Qingdao on our first Saturday, which was during the Labor Day holidays in China. We really enjoyed seeing some interesting places in the city. Ron's reader is working on a master's degree in tourism in the University, so she was a good guide! She is a delightful person, and we really enjoyed our time with her. We felt that this was profitable time to not only get to know her better, but to help her to know us and to know more about the things that are most important in life.
We took taxis from place to place, but mostly we walked. Later we figured out that we rode for about 45 minutes and walked for about 6 hours that day! Needless to say, we were tired by Saturday evening!

Because Qingdao is a peninsula, there are several beaches---7 beaches to be exact. They commonly go by numbers rather than names. Beach 1, on Qingdao Bay, is the largest (580 meters long). On Beach 1 are several tourist spots, including Zhanqiao Pier, Underwater World (like Sea World), and the Navy Museum.
Zhanqiao Pier was built in 1892 and is 440 meters long. You can tell by the photos that the pier area is popular, especially on a holiday week-end!




At the end of the pier is Huilan Pavilion. That pavilion is the symbol on all of the world-famous Qingdao Beer products called Tsingtao. (The Tsingtao Brewery was begun during the German occupation of Qingdao, so the beer is of German origin.)









There were many people selling sea shells and sea shell products all around the Pavilion and pier. There were also quite a few beggars.


Hundreds of people were wading in the water and walking on the rocks at the water's edge looking for little crabs. I assume that they eat the crabs.






The following is a picture of the beach taken from the Pier. The quality of the picture is not very good because of the heavy fog that day.