It’s very unusual for us Nanjing examiners to be invited to examine in any other city but Mark and I got the call from Shanghai – would we be prepared to go to Qingdao to do 30 candidates there? Why not, it’s not often we get to fly to another city and stay in a five star hotel.
Only hour on the plane from Nanjing we touched down in Qingdao at 10am. I had been looking forward to seeing the sea and there was certainly plenty of it in Qingdao. Mark, my travelling campanion had been to Qingdao once before as his dodgy visa was obtained from a company there.
The Crowne Plaza was plush. We decided to pay 14 pounds for breakfast and stuffed our faces like we had not seen western food for months (well we hadn’t!). I was in heaven, surrounded by so much edible food such as croissants, Danish pastries, bacon, eg, fruit and yoghurt – OMG it was brilliant.
The test centre was in the Ocean University on a campus which was a long way out of the centre. When we got there it looked other-wordly t
oo; lots of barren scrubland and half built buildings and craters where they had quarried stone. It didn’t seem a very enticing place to study!
The building however was much more luxurious than we are used to in South East University in Nanjing. It had windows which fitted and central heating (unknown in NJ!). But the most striking difference was that there was no noise… 
anywhere…. at all. It was like being on an unpopulated planet.
Lunchtime came and the local examiners invited us to their favourite local bistro. Now, I have been to some nasty places in China but this one tops the lot. It was barely more than a shack and to get to it you had to go across wasteland and through a hole someone had made in a fence.
I then had to feel my way through several smoke filled rooms before getting to the “Private Dining Room”. In fairness the food wasn’t too bad and obviously very cheap. Mark and I filled our bellies and made an early exit to wander around a bit and take in the scenery before heading back to our examining rooms.
Everywhere was scrub, enjoyed by nobody but a stray dog which lived in a cardboard box on one of the mounds. The best bit of the trip was getting back to the hotel… oh and the whisky in the staff room at the end of the testing session – Christmas is here apparently.
I’m sure the centre of Qingdao is fine but the university district is a wasteland. I am going to Hefei in January – I hear it’s not much better!