Last Sunday, the interns of Qingdao gathered together and enjoyed a trip to the “Old Town”. At first, we made a stop at a Muslim restaurant to gain some energy and got to know the taste of fresh made noodles.
After finishing our lunch we reached the Jimo Lu Market by taxi. Jimo Lu is the primary bargain market in Qingdao, which is located on Liao Cheng Road. They bargain a large selection of clothing, footwear, watches, bags, jewelry, suitcases, shirts, decoration and toys. We split up in two groups. Understandable, because the girls will take much longer to go shopping. 😉
Taking care of everyone, we managed to meet after an hour to walk up the road to the St. Michaels Cathedral, also called Zhejiang Road Catholic Church.
This Cathedral is located in the oldest part of Qingdao and is a product of a strong German presence in Shandong Province in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
After taking some pictures we went on to the Food Street and some of our interns were brave enough to eat some special “Crisps”. 🙂
Marching on to the arcade we took a short stop at an empty looking indoor city, which seemed like a city of an amusement park during the winter season.
Getting in the mood, we paid our last visit to an amusement arcade playing all kind of funny games and watching Chinese people dancing to Korean songs.
Can’t wait to do it again!
Apply now for an internship! Join me and the other interns trying local delicacies.
InternChina Trip to Beijing – Part 1
Last week was another holiday in China, the Dragon Boat Festival. Therefore we all had Monday to Wednesday off, meaning the perfect opportunity to organize an InternChina trip to Beijing.Monday morning at 6 o’clock we all arrived at Qingdao train station. Sadly, we didn’t think about the long lines that might be at the counter for picking up the train tickets, we tried everything but the lines were just way too long that we actually missed our train… oops! Little reminder for everybody who is travelling in China, be there at least one hour before and if you need to pick up your tickets… show up two hours in advance or go there one day before to pick them up!
Well, in the end we had to get new tickets, gladly we could refund the old ones and so we could finally go on our trip at 4 pm. We made the best out of the waiting time and had a great sight-seeing day in Qingdao, we had a delicious lunch and visited Old Town.
Christian Church in QingdaoWe finally arrived at 10:30 pm in our hostel, all very exhausted but glad to finally be in Beijing. For the next day we planned on going to the Great Wall of China. The part of the Great Wall we visited was located about 70km north of Beijing so it took us about 1.5 hours to get there. Our hostel organized the trip so a bus picked us up in front of the hostel and drove us to a very nice – gladly not so crowded – spot at the wall. We climbed out of the bus and found ourselves in a really beautiful place. Lots of little mountains with trees and on the top you could see, very tiny and quite far away, the Great Wall. A place which all of us have just seen on television, therefore it was really exciting to finally get to walk on it.
The Great WallOur tour guide explained to us that we could either walk or take the cable cars to get to the top. We split the group and some of us walked, which took about 15 minutes, the others went by cable cars, which took about 5 minutes. Finally up on the wall it was really impressive to walk on a sight that was already built in the 7th century BC. Of course the part we walked on was renovated for the tourists but we could get a look at the old part as well.
Finally we arrived at the topWe were walking for about three hours on the wall which was quite exhausting. But we were lucky, the sun was shining and it was a great day. After our hike, we had good Chinese food together at the bottom of the sight and then we went back to our hostel.
Deserved lunch with some Tsingtao beersWhen we arrived back at the hostel we were all pretty exhausted but there was no time to relax, we wanted to see as much as possible from Beijing. So we just refreshed ourselves real fast and went to the Temple of Heaven. It’s located in a huge park where many Chinese people come together in the evenings to play cards, sing and dance.
Image source: globeimages.comTune in on Monday for Part 2 of our Beijing Trip!
Would you also like to travel to beautiful and exotic places in China? Apply now for an internship or send us an email at info@internchina.com for more information!
After my visit to Jiuzhai Gou National Park a couple of weeks ago, I took the train directly to Chongqing and traveled for about 3.5 hours. The high-speed train takes only 2 hours, but since April 4 is “Tomb Sweeping Day”, many people travel around and I was not able to buy a high speed train ticket.
Chongqing is a large and flourishing mountain city. I stayed for three nights at the home of a friend I met online. She took me for a lot of great local food and gave me a great introduction to the city in only two days.
The first day, after she took me for some local spicy sweet-potato noodles, I took the metro to Ciqikou Old Town. The tea houses in Ciqikou are very famous in Chongqing so I really wanted to experience the tea lifestyle there. I also found that they have many local snacks and some very special street food. Ciqikou is the best place to try local food and buy gifts for friends.
The second day, I went to meet another friend at the touristic center of Chongqing, Jiefangbei. They have lots of shopping malls around and a very famous food street. After a quick lunch with my friend, I went back to my host’s home. That afternoon, her American flatmate drove me around the city on his motorbike and we even went to the peak of Chongqing.
After such a beautiful day, the fun continued: I went to a BBQ party with my friends, at a house located inside a university campus on the peak of the mountain. This is the best place for a night view of the city. I enjoyed the beautiful night view, drank some Shancheng beer and had some great BBQ. I felt like I didn’t want to leave Chongqing!
I have been to many places in China, but I can honestly say Chongqing is one of my favorite cities. I like the street life, always lively, I never saw an empty street. I also like the friendly people, the great food, the relaxing tea culture and the traditional and internationally mixed city. I hope I can go back soon!
Want to learn about the best places to visit in China? Come to Zhuhai for an internship and get first-hand tips and stories from Sunny! Apply now or email us for more information.
Today I would like to give you a little insight about the German History of Qingdao. The reason, why I wrote this blog is, because a lot of people always ask me about the city´s exciting history, therefore I started a research for our Internchina interns and I would like to show you my results!
In 1914 the First World War broke out!
The Japanese wanted to continue to hold Qingdao for the remainder of the German lease and Chinese government then yielded to Japanese pressure. In 1938 Japan re-occupied with its plans of territorial expansion onto China´s coast, which lasted to 1945. Since the inauguration of China´s open-door policy to foreign trade and investment, western Qingdao developed quickly as a port city. Now it is the headquarters of the Chinese navy´s northern fleet.
The German occupation influenced Qingdao a lot, which used to be a small fishing village. Upon gaining control of the area the Germans equipped the poor place with wide streets, solid housing areas, government buildings and a rarity in large parts of Asia as that time and later. The area had the highest school density and the highest per capita student enrollment in all of China.
Commercial interest established the Germania Brewery in 1903, which later became the world-famous Qingdao Brewery. Also the Germans left a distinct mark on Qingdao´s architecture inevitably during the colonial period that can still be seen in its historic center and train station. Qingdao´s Old Town located in the German concession area is rich in European buildings. The mixture of historical sites and attractions in the old Qingdao city indicates the city´s diverse international cultures.
If you would like to learn more about the exciting history, come to Qingdao and apply now via mail or directly on our website!
Hey everyone, yesterday some of us became Chinese stars! (or not…), a Chinese production agency asked us to play westerners in a historical movie showing Qingdao in the past. So InternChina’s intern went there and acted a whole day long.
They told us to be there at.. 6h30 am so we had to get up about 5 o’clock on a sunday morning! After arriving there, we received uniforms, but also funny beards and moustaches. (see the pictures)
Jack, Jan H, Lukas and Alex received directly military uniforms of Generals (the tall guys lol). Jan and Rinat became soldiers (sailors better said) and Kevin, Christian and I became officers. Not Military officer as I thought at the beginning but civilian officers (it’s the reason why we are wearing this old fashioned suits with top hat).
The film was shot in the old town of Qingdao and we were representing the German period of the city.
What was also very funny, is that lots of Chinese people were looking at the shoot and taking photos of us.
We received then our instructions, only walking no text, and we acted the same scene twice, once in winter and then in summer.
We had then to wait until our last scene (more than 2 hours) as we were still wearing the costumes, we spent this time in making some funny pictures of us.
Finally after lunch we had to act for our last scene, which was the most funny one. We had to look disappointed because Japan had lost the war, and you can easily imagine that it was the hardest thing to do, and especially for me it was so difficult not to laugh. But we finally managed it and our work was done.
We decided then to relax and have a beer in a café in Qingdao, remembering all the funny moment of the day, this experience was really nice and the agency told us that they will shoot many movies in the future, so they will need more westerners to act for them! 🙂
Would you like to play in a movie and become a star ? Just send us your application to info@internchina.com or apply directly on our website 😉
ZHOUZHUANG known as one of the (old towns)- which is located around 1 hour from the downtown of Shanghai city. It is known as “Shanghai’s Venice”. There are tons of shops, great sea food, and not that many foreigners (which is nice for Shanghai)- typically lots of foreigners in Shanghai. It is very traditional and gave me the feeling of Chinese history… The only problem I faced in my entire trip in Shanghai was my tour guides only spoke Chinese… So my job now is to go back and figure out where I was and what is the history behind all the places I visited. I read that the Fangsheng Bridge is a very famous attribute to this city- its meaning is “setting-fish free bridge” and is the longest and largest bridge in the city and was built in 1571 (I Google searched it)…
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