KEY POINTS:
Qingdao has had a bit of a bad rap. China has been expecting a tourist influx over the Olympic Games which hasn't really happened.
This seaside city of 8 million probably deserves to have had more visitors than it has for the Olympic yachting, all of which is being played out in Qingdao's harbour.
Bad publicity has had a bit to do with it. Beijing has attracted all manner of coverage - some of it from this writer - about the smog and pollution and Qingdao has had its own environmental cross to bear: the slimy green weed which choked the yachting course and which has seen a typically efficient and people-intensive effort by the Chinese to clear it up.
Doesn't sound like much of a holiday come hither, does it? Come to Qingdao and see the stinko green weed.
There is another and more major reason. For the Olympics, the hotels - all prodded to do so by the Government - have hiked their prices up alarmingly and that, more than anything else, has helped the visitors to stay away.
That's my opinion, anyway. And I know. I looked at the possibility of my partner coming up here for a while but dropped the idea like a stone when I did the maths. With the hotels charging like a rogue elephant with a wasp sting, I figured I'd need an armoured car to accompany that much leaving the bank account.
But, with the numbers of tourists not running as high as expected, if you shop around you can find deals.
And, now the weed has gone or is at least held in abeyance, Qingdao begins to look a pretty town.
Oh, it still has a touch of smog or haze, readily visible from the 22nd floor window of my hotel in the skyscraper zone of town - but at least it has blue skies and real sunshine, unlike Beijing which tends to be shrouded eternally in the folly of man's vehicle and industrial emissions, letting nothing through except a sense of despair that we are all (not just China) sending our world to such a ruinous end.
No, Qingdao has a touch of the seaside about it; it is relaxed and casual. On my way to find my hotel yesterday, three locals - easily discerning that I was someone who didn't really know where I was going - stopped to ask if I needed help or directions.
I'm not even sure if that would have happened in Auckland but that wouldn't have happened in China the last time I was here, five years ago.
Maybe it might have in Qingdao - I've never been here before. But certainly, five years ago in Beijing, you would have attracted no offers of help; only curious and rude stares. But, in both cities, the friendliness and increasing openness of the people is the biggest and most noticeable change after five years - and it's not just put on for the Olympics, either.
The other noticeable thing about Qingdao is how the New Zealand yachties have taken to it. Successive New Zealand Olympic yachting teams have stayed separately from the main Olympic village, simply because the sea and the yachting course tends to be a long way away.
They like it that way too. The yachties build their own team ethic and spirit and do it in a very relaxed and casual way, just like Qingdao.
This year's team, managed by Russell Green, have a good feel about them and my first thought was: Los Angeles, 1984.
In those Olympics, the yachties, managed by Ralph Roberts, set up in a beach house in San Diego (the yachting venue). When you visited the house, you found in full of half-naked yachties, gear strewn everywhere and a sort of gentle chaos ruling with Roberts restoring Olympic order when necessary.
But the windows looked out onto a terrific view and you could sense that these were athletes focusing on their event, yes, but they were also able to do it in a way that mirrored how they did it in their country.
It's a little different this time - Qingdao will never be like New Zealand - and the accommodation is different but you get the feeling that this team is quietly and purposefully hitching up its collective trousers.
Boardsailor Tom Ashley and Laser sailor Andrew Murdoch are smart operators and are doing well so far - but it's early days yet and you'll soon go broke if you start betting on sailing, such are the vagaries and variables of the sport.
The yachties in Athens, 2004, for example had a pretty good setup, from all accounts, but brought home no medals.
In LA in '84, New Zealand won two golds - some bloke called Russell Coutts and the two-man Tornado team of Rex Sellars and Chris Timms.
I'm not saying that will happen this time, wouldn't be so bold. But there's a bit of a feel about this team.
Paul Lewis
Pictured above: Spain's 49er crew of Iker Martinez de Lizardu and Xabier Fernandez sail to the start of a race in the 49er class sailing competition of the 2008 Beijing Olympics in Qingdao, about 720 kilometers southeast of Beijing. (AP Photo / Herbert Knosowski)
