Weihai

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This is a series of articles on the cities I have visited during my time in China and my recollections of those visits. The first time I came to China was in the summer of 2007 and I arrived on a ferry from South Korea where I had been staying for a few months.

 

I arrived into the city of Weihai during a heavy downpour of rain along with my then wife and her teenage daughter. There were two other English people on the boat and we found that all five of us were heading on to Beijing. It was around 8.00 am and the only train to Beijing was not for another 12 hours, we took taxis to the train station only to find that there were no seat or sleepers available and all we could buy was standing tickets for the 16 hour journey to the Chinese capital city. Before that we sat in the waiting area of the station, taking turns on watching the bags and going on short walks to discover what we could of the city.

 

It is a popular tourist destination for the Chinese and South Korean’s with beaches and hotels ranging in quality from the cheap to the very expensive. I don’t think it gets too many foreign visitors, only those passing through as they head to or from the port. It has a large South Korean business community and receives lots of tourists from its neighbor across the Yellow Sea.

 

Weihai city itself was once known as Weihaiwei and is a city in Shandong province in Eastern China. It is the most easterly city in that province and a major seaport on the Yellow Sea. It was the main base for the Beiyang Fleet during the Qing Dynasty and was captured by the Japanese during the Battle of Weihaiwei in 1895, the last major battle during the First Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese left the city in May 1898 when it was taken over by the British. From 1898 until 1930 it was part of the British leased territory of Weihaiwei and the city was known as Port Edward under a lease agreement with the Chinese empire. A Royal Navy base was built on nearby Liugong Island and when the city was returned to Chinese rule in 1930 the naval base continued until 1940.

 

Weihai’s transportation links have greatly improved since my visit just over ten years ago, the regular train service is not much better, just four trains each day with one each going to Beijing or Hankou in Wuhan city, with two services daily going to the provincial capital of Jinan city. High speed services run from four stations in and around Weihai to Beijing, Shanghai, Qingdao and Jinan. Weihai’s airport has direct flights to the Chinese cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Harbin, as well as international flights to Seoul and Pusan in South Korea. The airport is the fourth busiest in the province of Shandong.