The historic urban area in Qingdao is increasingly gaining popularity as the temperature gets hotter. A daily average of more than 300,000 tourists visited the area in the first spring tourism and art season held this year. Intersections, confrontations and integrations between times and between different cultures are manifested in a more creative manner in the vigorous historic urban area.

To trace to its sources, Qingdao has restore a slow of old buildings to their original appearance, highlighting the city’s features of red tiles, green trees, blue seas and azure skies. New scenarios for light and shadow art in the mountain-and-sea city have been created in the historic urban area, ranging from the laser light show in the Zhanqiao Pier, the Little Qingdao and the Marine Palace, the naked eye 3D screen on the Parkson Square, the light show on the Haishi Shanmeng Square to themed illuminations on Zhongshan Road and the Dabao Island block. Citizens and tourist can travel around the old urban district to their heart’s content amid the fabulous light and shadow art works.

In the historic urban area, such time-honored restaurants as Chunhelou still serve the same delicious cuisines while new Chinese cake shops, new Chinese-style drink shops, branded restaurants as well as bars, cafes, ice cream shops, hamburger shops and bakeries of all kinds have also flooded in the area, providing a great diversity of tongue experience amid the hustle and bustle.

The historic urban area has fervently embraced the era of digitization, where a stream of digital light and shadow projects as the “Opportunity Planet”, the super VR experience hall and the digital fascinating marine cultural tourism complex and immersive experience projects have been constructed to add new types of tourism. With the digital administration mode featuring “products-management-services” in blocks, the old urban district has been at the forefront of the smart city construction campaign.  (Wang Meng)

The Dabao Island Culture and Leisure Block is well-illuminated when night falls.  By Xing Zhifeng

The Aier Fair in Qingdao’s old urban district appeals to many tourists and citizens. By Xing Zhifeng