According to the media, warmer than normal temperatures in the Yellow Sea have caused a colossal bloom of algae on the coast of Qingdao. What really happened was the ibetans, aiwanese, eas urkmentanis all got together with the western powers in iananmen square to poop on China’s big party. They devised a plan to attack Qingdao’s Sailing events by creating a green tide of mutant seaweed unlike any seen before it (with the exception of the massive blooms that happen every year in the lakes and various other polluted coastlines on the mainland). As a result of making sailing through the green slime impossible, the world would lose confidence in China’s ability to sail, knowing full well that the future depends on such an important method of transportation to get all the cheap manufactured goods delivered after oil peaks out. The economy would collapse and chaos would ensue. A sock puppet named Dave would be proclaimed supreme leader via a highly annoying yet repetitive pop-music single, and he would split the country into fruit shaped fragments with assorted tropical aromas.

The government was having none of that. The CPC, the almighty power that they were, in a universe far far away, had possession of both the ring, and a direct line for the Ninja Turtles. Too bad the ring was gambled away by a party official during a game of craps against Kim Jong-il in Macao. The Ninja Turtles, knowing full well that pizza on the mainland usually ranks on the flavour charts between Old Leather Shoe and Toxic Waste couldn’t be bothered. So the only sane and logical option left was to declare war against the goo!!! And let’s be honest here, when you’ve got an army two and a half million strong, if they aren’t raping, pillaging or gold farming, they might as well be carefully placing slimy goo into bags.

A week ago from my apartment’s balcony, the ocean view looked like a grassy field in Saskatchewan. That didn’t last long. A flotilla of boats said to be in the hundreds got busy, while the army was called in to take care of the beaches. One day all the public servants in Qingdao were ordered to spend the day at the seaside picking up gunk. Then they closed down entire avenues so that the dump trucks could pretend to drive like nascars as if that was somehow different than everyday. Ahhhh… the joys of an authoritarian one party government.

Supposedly they’re carting all the slime off to the countryside. Nice. The farmers do all the work around here, the crappy jobs that no one wants for 50 bucks a month and what do we give them in return? Thousands of tons of rotting green slimy algae. Well they’ll probably thank us, because I heard they’re going to save a ton on pig feed with this little bonus from the powers that be. Green ham and eggs anyone? That reminds me, I’m off pork for the next little ever. If anyone asks, I’ve converted to Judaism. Oi Vey!

And for no particular reason other than being awesome, this guy.

Just this past week I made another random journey with a friend to the only beach in the Qingdao area that I haven’t yet been to. This beach was at the entrance to Laoshan Mountain. My friend called me up out of nowhere and figured that despite the encroaching smog, it would be a good day to check the beach. Supposedly this was the nicest beach in the Area, and I had nothing better to do so I agreed to go. After spending half an hour trying to figure out which bus would take us to this mythical beach, we hopped on the mighty 304 and for 70 cents and an hour of our time, we arrived at Laoshan Beach.

What can I say about this place? Well it definitely is the nicest beach in Qingdao, because it’s so far away, it gets very few visitors, and because it’s massive, it seems like no one is there. It’s also nestled between a bunch of mountains, so the views are nice. We spent most of the day just wandering around and observing the interesting features.

One of the first things I noticed when we stepped foot on the sand were these little holes everywhere. I wondered aloud as to what they might be and bent over one to examine it. Just then, out popped a mini crab like creature that began running around. I got some snaps of the little devil and then chased him back to his hole.

The beach had crabs. That’s fine I suppose. We dealt with it by staying closer to the water where the amphibious crabs preferred to avoid not because they didn’t like the water, but because they were having a food coma after devouring all the chinese people who once populated the beach.

My friend and I continued to walk and debate the nature of space time relativaty and string theory, when we came upon this little gem, that I nearly stepped on.

The beach was now tainted. I’d seen worse I figured, and once again my friend and I jumped back into the arguments and implications of the Second Treatise melding with the State of Nations, when we happened to find this poor fellow.

We weren’t sure what it was at first. I thought it was a dog’s corpse but I was secretly hoping for sentience. It turned out to be a washed up jellyfish. From this point, surely things couldn’t get any stranger, yet of course, they did. Out of nowhere, this gentleman appeared, and decided that he was going to have Qingdao Jello™ for dessert.

Before he made off with McBlobicus, I felt it necessary to feel up our floundered friend.

And for no particular reason, here’s a picture of someone’s shoes with a blubbery mess.

Despite all these minor afflictions, the beach was still really nice, in a nice setting, and there was no one there. Not even those creepy guys…however I did manage to find our ambiguously amicable amigos:

Qingdao has many small scenic beaches in the downtown areas that are heavily populated with wankers trying to rent time on jet-skis and para-sails. These beaches do however have nice views and convenient drinking areas, which is always a big plus for me. Despite the fact that you may think I’m a wino, my most recent excursion was educationally inclined. The beaches make pretty decent places to study, because there is somewhat less honking and you can pretend that the air is cleaner. Recently I decided to try a beach on the eastern edge of the downtown. I’m not sure what number beach this is named, but I’ll call it Hello Commie beach, after the communist soldier I saw decked out with his green suit and pink Hello Kitty umbrella to protect his precious skin from the sun.

Hello Commie beach is the largest beach I’ve been to in the city, both in length and from shore to backside. It’s a 15-minute cab ride from Jusco, which is about 16RMB. I discovered it one day when I was eating at the top of the Kilin Hotel’s restaurant. As an aside try to remember this formula: revolving restaurant plus all you can eat buffet equals negative too much money and positive test for Salmonella. I mistakenly had the cab driver take me to the far eastern edge of the beach, which turned out alright because there was access to a closed off stretch of the beach that looked like it was under rehabilitation. To get to it, I had to wade through a knee deep stream of what I pray was just seawater that separated the two beaches. Once on the other side, I found a stretch of dirty beach with no more than 3 naked guys tanning along what seemed to be a mile long coast. I looked for the spot with the least amount of broken glass and used hypodermic needles and set up camp, then proceeded to practice Chinese grammar.

Over the course of my three-hour study, I observed only one group of guys arrive at this private spit. I assume it would be a great place to have a party, as there were a couple of aborted fire pits in the sand and the area is completely enclosed by tall blue fences.

Once I was finished, I went for a walk along the normal part of the beach. Chinese people have a strange way of “doing” the beach. Tons of them go, so the beaches are always packed. Packed with guys in speedos that is. For the most part, a speedo or briefs are the uniform of choice. Women on the other hand keep as much clothing on as possible, if they even emerge from the tents they set up to protect from the sun. I saw one girl in the water, and she was wearing what looked to be a cross between one of those 1920’s era swimsuits and something an astronaut would wear. There’s also these packs of middle aged guys wearing unsuitable dark clothes that I see roaming around everywhere, examining everything like they’re extra-terrestrials. People do indeed swim, so I would imagine that either the water is acceptably clean, or more likely their immune systems have mutated into super disease defense systems. After a while I got to the far western side of the beach, when I decided that it wasn’t worth crossing another creek that definitely wasn’t seawater to get to another filthy section where a bunch of stray dogs were eating dead fish. I figured this was a good time to go.

You will find more pictures on the link.

Lots of people

Deserted yet polluted stretch

Lovely garbage closeup

Damn rocks

Looks like a page from “Where’s Waldo?”

It’s those GUYS again