One of the major events in Qingdao every year (being that it is famous for its beer) is the Qingdao International Beer Festival which runs for 3 weekends in August.
As a school we had a staff outing to the fest as everyone is pretty frazzled with the mad rush of a new academic year.
Many of you know our school has two campus's on either side of the Qingdao bay so being as we are on the "far side" our "beer fest" adventure began with a 1:45 minute mini bus ride around the bay.
The beer fest is a beer event mixed with carnival rides, games, entertainment etc. After a few minutes at the fest though, one realizes including "International" in the event's name is a bit of a stretch. My guess is that they think that if you have some Heinekin and a couple German beers available as well as a few Chinese minority groups grilling kabobs over a grill, it becomes "International".
Ah..no..
Each of the different beer tents had music blaring so loud that a conversation is all but impossible. It might be forgiven if it was good music...but its not!
As you approach the toilets I nearly stepped into some vomit that no one seemed to be in a hurry to clean. The toilets themselves were not so much "International" as they were...mmm..third world prison. The urinal "trough" was loaded with vomit and the smell was pungent. You turn around to see not toilet "stalls" but a another trough with no doors or walls where a row of guys are doing their "# 2 business" staring up at you.
That ain't right.
A fellow teacher with me just said, "Ah, if I had the guts to snap a picture...no one would believe this otherwise"
We did have an enjoyable evening though and the "meat on a stick" kabobs we're delicious. Gabriel went around playing carnival games and a good time was had by all...mostly!
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