day 6 - arriving to Qingdao - 22.08

We had made bookings for a single night in a hotel in Qingdao. Once we arrived to the city past 11 at night, we were quickly surrounded by taxi drivers in front of the train station - apparently the hotel we got booked was about 100km away :( As their english is as it is then the taxi driver called to one of his friends who translated what i said and also what the taxi driver was saying. After some negotiations and thinking we asked him to take us to some hotel that is closer. So he did, but he kept saying somegthing about police which we did not understand. First hotel we were taken to the reception lady shook her head when we entered - the deal is that since the sailing events for the olympics are taking place in Qingdao, then foreigners must stay at hotels which are 4 or more stars. This rule applies throughout the Olympics :( So basically we are stuck with some very expensive hotels here :( We were taken to another hotel, there we tried to bargain the price - no use. As time was getting close to midnight already then we did not see any choice than to stay in this one. We went to see the room first just in case - nothing pretty, but decent enough. What is with the smell though? Smells like fungus and sigarettes here.

In the morning we nearly missed our breakfast :) We were so hungry though so that would have been bit bad to go on another few hours without food. Breakfast was strange though, lots of dumplings with different fillings and some tasteless cake things. But at least it is food. Took a shower and now we are packing our things again - will leave the bags in a hotel and will try to find more suitable hotel for the next night.

Looking out of the window we are able to see the actual sun and blue blue sky - soo nice :)

So far we have had the luxury of having internet access in our hotel rooms. In the future we are thinking of trying youth hostels as well and there the conditions might not be that good :) So no idea of how regularly we will be able to post in the near future. Haven't really noticed any internet access spots in town either, also no Starbucks - maybe those are only in Hong Kong area?

I also ended up getting a local SIM card, my number here is - 15011199443. This means that my EMT card is not in use at the moment - I do put it in once in a while just to see if there are some messages or something.