Tour of Qingdao

This is the German guest house. I was built by the Germans when they occupied Qingdao from 1887-1914. After that it was occupied by Japan, then China then Japan and then China again. Most of the famous leaders from each country have stayed or lived there at times. I will include a few pictures that I took there.

This is a light fixture in the German Guest House. It is made of ruby, emerald, etc. Only the real stones were used in the fixture.

Mike was fascinated with this free standing staircase.

I took this picture of a photo on the wall. I just found it to be such a lovely mix of culture.

The German Guest House/ Gov. mansion with the old signal towers on Signal Mountain behind. The towers are now restaurants.

Pagoda on a hill above town built for visitors

The view from the Pagoda.

Chinese Catholic Church

Chinese Protestant Church with our tour bus.

We visited the historic prison and it had many sad torture rooms and pictures. This was the one memory that I thought was rather fun. It is a photo of the "plain clothes" police that were the spies.

Our favorite spot of the day was a Buddhist Temple that our tour guide had not even ever been to. It is named the FaHaiSi Temple. It is located in the Summer Village Town of Mount Lao and was built in the period dating back approximately 1,700 years ago. Much of it was remodeled I believe in the 80's. There were many temples with different statues in each one.

This little lady was working in one of the temples. We hugged, I asked for her picture, she loved it and we hugged again. We became fast friends although neither said a word.

I walked toward one of the buildings and this little lady beckoned for me to come in and pretended to strike a gong or drum. She took me up a steep, narrow staircase and showed me the drum. I tried to get her to be in the picture and she shook her head no the first two times and then I convinced her. When I showed her the picture she thanked me several times.

When my new "drum friend" and I got outside she took me to a store where statues where sold. I was the first of our group to be taken there so I had my pick. This little Buddha caught my eye and she sold it to me for the equivalent of $10. It is solid metal on a wood stand. It has little glass stones and a bead strand on his hand. Our tour guide told me after that the golden Buddha is the sign of prosperity.

This group of little ladies were either working or visiting the temple while we were there. They were SO excited that I had purchased a Buddha and wanted a picture with me. The one just kept hugging me.

Next they got the monk to get in the picture too and pulled in Cherry Blake who had also purchased something. Everyone wanted to be in the picture. What a lovely time we had.