This was in 2008. Dont quite rememberteh exact dates...
n incomplete blog though.. but didnt want to leave it unpublished
hmmm.. after all the planning and hungama. We finally lft Incheon, South korea to Qingdao, China by Asiana Airlines..
This blog is mainly informational.
We carried along 2 baggage; 1 handbag and a suitcase which in turn had 2 other bags to carry back the shopped things from china.;)
Day 1:
We departed Korea at 4:45pm and arrived at Qingdao at 5:15pm... Not just an hr.. But 2.
The time difference between Korea n china is an hour.. ie.. arrival time to china in Korea is 6:15pm..
Havin the indian passport as always was an inconvenience as the immigration officer had to verify our passport validity in detail when compared to other foreigners..;( Anyways, we weren't upset as we didnt care , for we love India and dont care for those who have caused this situation to indian passport holders.
When we landed out of the airport, we were already feelin insecure as we really witnessed no people speakin english.. except for one person in the bus ticket bookin section.
But somehow we reached the right hotel as vhad written the address and shown it to the bus driver.. Throughout our bus journey for about 30 minues into Qingdao city centre, we were worried if we would reach the right place. But we were dropped right before the city "Long Distance Bus Station" which was the opposite to Hotel Sifang(whihc we had booked for stay in qingdao).
We then enquired in the recption about meas to travel to beijing(our reason fo rthe trip).. n wooow. There is nothin available... Bus would be 12 to 16 hours..n train n fighthas no vacancies.. we were shatterred.. ops!! so now wat?? We just prayed n decided to have a good time in qingdao itself till we find some means to travel to beijing.
Day 2:
We got up early next morning hopin to find some good means to go to beijing.. But we inturn ended up joining a small city tour group. It was a package tour for Mt. Loshan, Qingdao pearl harbour, lama temple. The best part of Mt.Lashan was the Mitiyuan cave.. it was quite an adventure. We cannot get into the cave without a torch n we thought we would have a tough time as we were worried bt taking doniv along.. But our angel was very co-operative..
N then lunch at a htotel below the mount.. was good...
In the evening, we did some shopping in the nearby market.. it was real cheap.. but we assumed Beijing would be cheaper n bought only lmited stuff but after being in beijing we realised we were wrong.
And bt Hotel sifang.. well that's another story. Little did we recollect that china is supposed to be another India n that we need to be as careful as in India.. well, we got cheated.. the hotel registrar signed a fake room number n charged us extra amount.. We were totally upset at this.. But moved on as we were all excited to move to Beijing.. The much awaited tour.
But luckily for us.. real lucky i should say. There was exactly 2 canceled tickets to Beijing in the hotel's travel agent n so we traveled to Beijing overnight via train. Railways infrastructure was excellent but train journey was exhausting.. We were quite worried b doniv as he was getting stressed throughout.
The rest....... undocumented ;)
n incomplete blog though.. but didnt want to leave it unpublished
hmmm.. after all the planning and hungama. We finally lft Incheon, South korea to Qingdao, China by Asiana Airlines..
This blog is mainly informational.
We carried along 2 baggage; 1 handbag and a suitcase which in turn had 2 other bags to carry back the shopped things from china.;)
Day 1:
We departed Korea at 4:45pm and arrived at Qingdao at 5:15pm... Not just an hr.. But 2.
The time difference between Korea n china is an hour.. ie.. arrival time to china in Korea is 6:15pm..
Havin the indian passport as always was an inconvenience as the immigration officer had to verify our passport validity in detail when compared to other foreigners..;( Anyways, we weren't upset as we didnt care , for we love India and dont care for those who have caused this situation to indian passport holders.
When we landed out of the airport, we were already feelin insecure as we really witnessed no people speakin english.. except for one person in the bus ticket bookin section.
But somehow we reached the right hotel as vhad written the address and shown it to the bus driver.. Throughout our bus journey for about 30 minues into Qingdao city centre, we were worried if we would reach the right place. But we were dropped right before the city "Long Distance Bus Station" which was the opposite to Hotel Sifang(whihc we had booked for stay in qingdao).
We then enquired in the recption about meas to travel to beijing(our reason fo rthe trip).. n wooow. There is nothin available... Bus would be 12 to 16 hours..n train n fighthas no vacancies.. we were shatterred.. ops!! so now wat?? We just prayed n decided to have a good time in qingdao itself till we find some means to travel to beijing.
Day 2:
We got up early next morning hopin to find some good means to go to beijing.. But we inturn ended up joining a small city tour group. It was a package tour for Mt. Loshan, Qingdao pearl harbour, lama temple. The best part of Mt.Lashan was the Mitiyuan cave.. it was quite an adventure. We cannot get into the cave without a torch n we thought we would have a tough time as we were worried bt taking doniv along.. But our angel was very co-operative..
N then lunch at a htotel below the mount.. was good...
In the evening, we did some shopping in the nearby market.. it was real cheap.. but we assumed Beijing would be cheaper n bought only lmited stuff but after being in beijing we realised we were wrong.
And bt Hotel sifang.. well that's another story. Little did we recollect that china is supposed to be another India n that we need to be as careful as in India.. well, we got cheated.. the hotel registrar signed a fake room number n charged us extra amount.. We were totally upset at this.. But moved on as we were all excited to move to Beijing.. The much awaited tour.
But luckily for us.. real lucky i should say. There was exactly 2 canceled tickets to Beijing in the hotel's travel agent n so we traveled to Beijing overnight via train. Railways infrastructure was excellent but train journey was exhausting.. We were quite worried b doniv as he was getting stressed throughout.
The rest....... undocumented ;)
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