Qingdao, China

Here begins the first of several blogs about our trip, so please forgive us for some Josiah-free entries. We'll be leaving out certain aspects of the trip, but feel free to ask us about anything in person.

We lived in the city of Qingdao in the Shandong province. The city has 9 million people in it; the province has 100 million. Never heard of it? Neither had we before we started making arrangements. Jonathan was there for a little over three weeks, and I joined him for the final two of those.

We hiked a mountain that overlooked the city. It was a breathtaking view (the steepness took my breath away as well).

As we looked out at the massive size of the city and thought about how many people lived here, we were reminded of this passage in Mark 6:
"When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things."

Even though the work to be done in this city seemed overwhelming, this picture reminded me that it always starts with just a few people.

The city was very modern. We had several large grocery/department stores, several McDonald's, Starbucks, KFC, Pizza Huts and even a Home Depot. I managed to find the strategic locations of several Western toilets.

Qingdao is located on the Pacific Ocean, with a long walking trail and several "bathing beaches", although it wasn't anything like a beach town in the U.S. It is one of the newer cities in China (~100 years old) and its commerce has grown significantly in recent years.

We walked on the beach one day when it was really rainy, but it was still really beautiful.

One of the big tourist sites was this May 4th statue. I walked there one day, and three people requested to have their picture taken with me. I guess an American is also a tourist attraction.

Qingdao hosted the sailing events for the 2008 Olympics, and they are enormously proud of it.

We got to visit the Olympic center there, which was one of the more quiet tourist sites we visited. We liked it!