“Did you come alone?” the receptionist asked while I was checking in. I paused for a second and said, “Yes.”

It was a very easy question, since there was only one name on the booking and no one was standing behind me, but for some reason, that question made me think of my friends.

I came to Shandong for a six-day solo trip, and I still don’t really know why I chose this place. Qingdao and Weihai sounded interesting, driving along the coast sounded fun, and that was pretty much it. I was excited at first: I landed, picked up the rental car, played Afro House, and started driving. I didn’t need to wait for anyone or ask where they wanted to go, I could wake up whenever I wanted and change the plan at any time. I usually enjoy spending time alone, so I thought I would be good at travelling alone too... I mean, what could go wrong?

Until I found something fun and had no one to share it with.

I wanted to post on WeChat Moments, but I didn’t want my parents to know any of it. I wanted to post Instagram Stories or send everything to my friends, but I was also worried that I was sharing too much and becoming annoying, so I took a lot of photos and videos and kept most of them to myself.

Eating alone also sucked. I saw a lot of food I wanted to try, but there was no way I could finish all of it, and even when I ordered less, I still had leftovers. Sometimes I packed them back to the hotel, but cold food usually tasted bad, and not every hotel had a microwave.

I brought my camera too, and I did shoot with it a little, mostly around the beer street in Qingdao, but those photos are still sitting on the SD card, since I never felt like importing them, let alone editing or posting them. I later realized why: I don’t just like taking photos of my friends, I like taking photos when my friends are around. They might be in the frame, looking stupid or looking cool, or they might not be in it at all, but what matters is that the photo means something to us. Without that, buildings and the sea were just buildings and the sea, not worth the effort of opening Lightroom, and the camera was pretty much just extra weight in my bag. I still took photos and videos with my phone while driving, which I knew was dangerous and stupid, but if I didn’t record anything, it felt like I came all this way for nothing.

I stayed in Yantai for 2 nights, and it kept raining. Actually, I didn’t get a single proper sunny day during the whole trip, every beach I went to had the same grey sky, with broken shells and random trash all over the sand, not even close to the beaches in Haikou, Sanya or Pattaya. Qingdao beer wasn’t as good as I expected either, and at that point, staying in Shanghai and playing pool or watching a movie with my friends sounded much better.

At night, I was lying on the hotel sofa, imagining the exact same evening with someone else there. We probably wouldn’t have done anything special, maybe ordered some food, watched something stupid, or just sat there doing nothing. The rain, the hotel, and Yantai would have been exactly the same, I just wouldn’t have minded any of them as much.

Weihai didn’t look any better at first. When I arrived at the Blueways shipwreck, the fog was so heavy that I could barely see the sea, and I thought I had come all this way for nothing again. But after waiting for around two hours, the sun finally came out, the fog slowly cleared, and I could finally see the ship. I took a few photos I liked, and below is my favourite one, which made Weihai the best part of the trip.

So the trip wasn’t completely bad, I was still curious about the world, and maybe I still like being alone, I just don’t like doing everything alone. Almost every day during the trip, I had the same thought:

I wish those idiots were here.