Qingdao. The home of Tsingtao beer and the 2008 Olympic Sailing events. I thought we were leaving the huge metropolis of Bejing and heading to a smaller city. Qingdao has 2.7 million people in the urban center with over 7 million if you take into account the outskirts - hardly a small city. The Germans administered this city from 1897 to 1922 and left some very typical European architecture and, of course, beer behind. The city sits on the coast and has been quite foggy since we've been here. All in all it's not as impressive as Beijing. It's much less clean and much less developed. The skyline is amazing. It's full of HUGE skyscrapers, most of which are only shells of the building. You can tell they are investing money in the city, but I think we caught it mid-stream development. No way all of it will be done by the time the olympics are done. [ pics ]