Weihai

Journey to Weihai

The time goes by so quickly that it’s really hard to believe final exams for our first set of classes are just around the corner. This campus of around 60 thousand people is the quietest place in all of Jinan. After the trips we have taken and the classes we’ve attended for weeks now, SDU has become like a second home. The food (the lack of Mexican food is the only down side), the sounds of the city, and the nature of the people is truly a unique experience. Traveling away to Weihai this past weekend felt a bit like going to LA from Santa Barbara; “leaving home again” were the words that came to mind.
[below: Jinan train station]


The overnight train ride to Weihai on October 9 was a piece of cake - even in the “hard sleeper” compartments. Which, I must say, are quite comfortable despite the name. At least, “hard sleeper” cars are comfortable compared to the ride we had coming back from Weihai at the end of the weekend. All I could think about then was how much I wanted to lay down during the 8-hour, all-day ride.
[below: settling for an overnight in a “hard sleeper” ]



Weihai was immediately exciting when we arrived early on the morning of October 10th. Groups of 3-4 of us grabbed cabs and rode - or perhaps a better word is “raced” - through the city. The cab drivers are crazy! When we arrived at Weihai’s Shandong University hotel (located directly on the beach!) we knew that the weekend was going to be amazing. We got a room on the fourth floor and it had an incredible view of the oceanfront.


The first afternoon was a lot of fun. We took a brief swim in the cold sea and had dinner at a local restaurant where we picked things off the menu at random. In many ways, this is the best part about traveling to a new place.


Walking around the city is an adventure in itself. A few of us were able to explore some of spots that are overlooked by many tourists, such as a boat graveyard where some of the locals actually docked themselves on the boats. That’s where they live!


After a few confusing cab rides we ended up at a building called the Happiness Arch.


There was a restaurant on the top floor of the Arch where we had lunch. It had an amazing 360 degree view of the city.
[below: Risa enjoying the view from the top of the “Happiness Arch”]


[below: Weihai Bay from the top of the “Happiness Arch," Liugong Island in the background]


In the evening we all made our way to Club Seven, where we were able to “get our groove on” with some of the locals and tourists.
[below: escaping, lives intact, from yet another insane taxi ride]


The next morning, we set out on an adventure to Liugong Island, the birthplace of the first modern naval force in China and site of The Battle of Weihaiwei, where the Empire of Japan inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Chinese in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95.
[below: Japanese print from 1895, “After the Battle of Weihaiwei, the Commander of the Chinese Beiyang Fleet, Admiral Ding Juchang, Surrenders to the Japanese commander’ by Mizuno Toshikata”]


After breakfast, we grabbed a taxi out in front of the hotel. We showed the driver our horrible effort at Chinese writing (we’d copied down the characters for “Liugong Island”) and he seemed to get the drift, so off we went. This cab ride was even more insane than the one we’d experienced day before. We wove in and out of traffic, drifted around corners, dodged pedestrians on sidewalks, barreled into oncoming traffic, ran red lights. Somehow, we arrived in one piece down at the docks. We were surprised to discover that getting the tickets for the ferry that would take us to Liugong Island was much easier than we thought - basic caveman grunts and hand signals did the trick.
[below: ferry ride to Liugong Island; Weihai city in the background]


We got to the island after about 15 minutes on the ferry and quickly set out to see the Sino-Japanese War Museum, which was great. It covered the material that we discussed in Dr. Mooney’s class on Modern China. After the museum we went and wandered around an abandoned part of the island. There was no one around but we did see big artillery pieces, a beached submarine, old jet aircraft, and a tank.



We also discovered a bunch of underground bunkers. We probably shouldn’t have explored them – they looked kind of dark and creepy - but, of course, we did anyway. After that we wandered down to the beach and then remembered that the ferries back to Weihai stop running at 5:00 pm so we had to head back. All in all, it was a great experience and we hope to do more adventuring soon.
[below: return to Weihai from Liugong Island; dusk]


[below: end of a rough weekend; 8-hour train ride home from Weihai to Jinan]


[below: if Weihai tired the students out, imagine what it did to their professor!]


-Shaun, Sam, Cyle