Qiao

This last weekend I took a short trip out to Qiao island with some friends. We walked across the bridge which joins the island to Zhuhai and spent a beautiful day exploring! At one point we ended up in the heart of a Chinese military training facility surrounded by guards who told us to put our cameras away and pointed at the way out. It was pretty nerve racking.

Towards the middle of the we arrived at a giant gate with ollyWood written across the top. Approaching the gate, a guard came out to us and asked us to pay him 10 kuai ($1.25) to enter. We shrugged and payed up - taking a moment to study a nearby map which indicated a beach somewhere up the road. After climbing a hill -- seeing nothing more than a few graves, some flowers, and some 'no burning' signs -- we came to a beautiful view of the ocean, with a giant beach and tons of fishing nets. We decided to climb down and take a peek. After winding down the mountain side we wound up at a beach covered in trash, the majority of which was shoe parts (perhaps there was a nearby shoe factory). After stumbing through the litter we paced along the coast taking pictures of fishermen, mussel encrusted rocks, and a nearby light house.

Anxious to get away from the sad sight we climbed back up the hill and continued up to 'ollyWood'.

The road ended abruptly at a building with a giant female 'buddha-esque' statue posing nearby. Other than the bulding, statue, a bbgun/ballon shooting range, and magnificent view of the island, there was nothing to ollyWood.

We decended the giant hill and climbed on a bus to return home.