Taxis in Qingdao were unlike those in any other country I’ve ever been. Cab drivers avoided the hassle of dealing with foreigners. Sometimes a dozen cabs would drive right by us before would stop. Then, half the time they would refuse our fare when they found out where we wanted to go. I would show them the card with the address of our destination on it, and they would shake their heads. They all had GPS, but were rarely willing to leave the neighborhood. I asked Lily, the hotel clerk where we were staying, about it, and she said, “I know right! Qingdao taxis are so strange!”
None of that affected my daughter very much. She just loved that the taxis had video games in the seat backs, like on a airplane.
I’m not a selfie person. I don’t really like looking at myself. This rare selfie attempt was taken from a viewpoint above Qingdao with my then-10-year-old. Like Seattle, Qingdao has a lot of gray days. But even when it’s gray, sometimes the light is too bright. For this self-portrait with city, we should have worn shades.
My daughter has never been able to eat spicy food. A couple dashes of black pepper used to send her running for water. Even after her cleft palate was repaired, closing the direct line between her mouth and sinuses, spicy food was totally taboo. But one day when we were in China, we walked into a little fast food place with a cow on the otherwise unreadable sign. This was a special treat for her, because she loves meat and I’m vegetarian. Assuring her that I would be fine with a bun from a nearby bakery, she ordered a bowl of beef soup from the photo menu.
When her order came, it was so laden with chili that I could smell it across the table. A layer of chili flake floater on the surface. It was genuinely spicy.
She couldn’t trade food with me, because I don’t eat beef and I hadn’t ordered anything to trade. But she was appalled at the thought of wasting money and food. (I don’t remember if I told her that her soup cost $6 – at that age she might have thought $6 was expensive.)
In the end, she made a full meal of it. It took an entire bottle of water and many tissues for her streaming sinuses, and she still couldn’t finish it. But she was as proud of the soup she did eat as if she had cooked it herself. And to this day, when she complains about food being too spicy, I remind her, “You ate the soup in Qingdao and even liked it.” She still avoids spicy food, but what counts as spicy now is so much hotter than a dash of black pepper.
I don’t know what possessed me to visit the Night Market in Qingdao first thing in the morning. As a shopping experience, it left much to be desired. But the gods never sleep, and these gods watch over the night market even during the day.
I’ve already shared how a birthday party created a figure skating monster. The monster was fed the following spring when we traveled to China and visited Qingdao’s brand new MixC Mall, which housed an Olympic size rink. While part of the rink was blocked off for a dancing walrus, my daughter taught herself to skate in a pair of rental skates and summer capris. It was her second skate, and my first inkling that figure skating would become a major part of our lives.
