Where do we start?

We've been in Qingdao only three days but already I have a week's worth of blog post content. So why no posts yet? Simply put: Internet ain't so good here. Hopefully its just a problem in the hotel slash apartment we're in, but its pretty poor. Slow slow slow and often we can't open websites at all. Inlcuding Blogger. I'll be lucky if this gets posted. I have been wondering, is this the legendary Communist information control in action? Why would the government care if I visited Facebook? Are some of my Facebook friends undesirables???

Anyway, first impressions of Qingdao:
1. Cleaner than I expected, at least downtown.
2. Blissfully low food prices compared with Korea.
3. Restaurants abound, and not just Chinese and Korean! Last night we ate at an Italian restaurant and had two appetizers, three entrees, one dessert, and one bottle of wine (plus two free drinks, "service-uh") for...get this, my friends in Korea....WELL UNDER $80 USD! Hot dog! And the food was goooooooood. Beat the heck out of Colavini! (but keep in mind, our food bill was about 2 months salary for the average worker).
4. So far the Chinese aren't as enthusiastically and unabashedly willing to invade Vivian's personal space for a look-see and a photo. Granted, we haven't run into any crowds of adolescent school girls (which in Korea are by far the worst, in my opinion), but so far people are pretty much keeping their distance.
5. But they're also not as warm and friendly, either.
6. Colder than Korea, and we lost Vivian's winter coat on the way here. So we didn't go out much for the first couple of days.
7. Really pretty sea shore. That will be so welcome during warmer weather!
8. Government-controlled TV. Not very interesting.