Today was another exciting day in Qingdao, despite the gloomy, rainy weather. We had one class in the morning, but afterwards we drove to the Qingdao brewery to learn about the history of their beer. I personally do not know a lot about beer, so it was quite interesting to learn about how to make it. I never realized how culturally significant it is to Qingdao. I learned that they have a beer festival in August for 2 weeks, and the first Qingdao beer festival began in 1991. I also didn't know that the Germans were the ones who set up the first Qingdao brewery in 1903. The Germans owned the brewery for 13 years, then the Japanese took over until 1945, and finally the Chinese claimed ownership. So that was very interesting and new to learn! There was also this really cool 'drunk room' that was slanted at an angle, so when one went inside of it, made he or she feel like they were drunk. It was actually very funny because we all could barely stand up, and it actually made my head feel dizzy! After the brewery, we went to lunch at a restaurant and ate at one large table all together. It was the first time that we used a lazy Susan to help us serve all of our food, and it was actually really helpful! They should be used everywhere because it is much easier to simply spin the wheel instead of asking someone to pass something to you from across the table. We ate some dumplings, noodles, and broccoli. I did enjoy the broccoli because it was warm, yet crunchy and the flavor of the sauce was not too overpowering. I could not eat the outside of the dumplings, but I did like inside of the meat ones and the mixed vegetable and meat ones. However, I did not really like the cucumber and egg dumplings because I personally thought that the cucumbers didn't taste very good with the egg. Another exciting part of the day was going shopping at a Chinese market. This was very different because the market was very crowded with more things than people. There were so many products everywhere, and it was overwhelming. I did purchase a new journal, since I'm running out of room. It was a lot of walking around, but it was a unique set up that I had never seen before. When we returned back to school, Felix, Breana, CoCo, Brandon, and I decided to play basketball with some Chinese students. It was three of them against the five of us, but they still owned us. It was my first time actually participating in a physical activity with the other Chinese students, so that was exciting for me. I can't wait for what tomorrow will bring!
Connor Gonzalez-Falla
Connor Gonzalez-Falla