So last year, right after Halloween, on the following Saturday night, there was a zombie bonfire hosted by some local expats. Trent and I didn’t personally know the expats running the party, but our friend Matt did and he invited us along.

I should start by saying that my husband Trent LOVES zombies. He has for forever. His man cave (yes, he is lucky enough to have a man cave) is covered in zombie books, games, and other paraphernalia. So basically, this invitation was like his dream come true. I am indifferent to zombies… but for the sake of my husband, I get into things like The Walking Dead and things like dressing up for this party. Trent and I put together some costumes and then he tried his hand at zombie makeup. He did a pretty good job! We felt a bit conspicuous leaving our apartment all zombified… imagine being in a country that traditionally doesn’t celebrate Halloween and then seeing people looking as freaky as we did… I’m sure we were quite the sight to see!

Matt didn’t live far from us, so we hopped on our scooter and headed over to his place to meet him and get him made up before heading out. While we were on our way, we snapped the BEST. PICTURE. EVER. We look uber creepy!

Don’t worry, we were stopped at a red light when we took this photo.

We got to Matt’s place and waited for him to come down and let us in to his apartment. While we were in the parking lot, we tried to take some zombie-looking shots. This was the only decent one.

When he came down and got us, we headed up to his place and fixed him up and then grabbed some beers at the corner store. Then we prepared to get a taxi (Our poor driver probably thought we were insane… or terrifying) to go to the beach spot where the bonfire was going to be held.

Trent getting Matt all zombified

Me being creepy and passing the time while Trent did Matt’s make-up.

The three of us all set and ready to be ZOMBIES…

Trent outside of the corner store, taking full advantage of this opportunity to look the part.

We drove down Xiang Gang Dong Lu, not too far past Polar Ocean World and then stopped near a hotel (I couldn’t tell you what it was called). Matt cautioned us then that we might have to “sneak” past the guards to get to the bonfire location. Geesh, now you tell us! Anyways, there really wasn’t much “sneaking” that we had to do. We just went down by the beach and then had to pass through the hotel’s backyard to get to the cliff area by the beach where the bonfire was being held. As we were walking, our other friend Andrew joined us. He was also in need of make-up, so Trent got yet another chance to practice his zombie-making magic.

The four of us: Andrew, Matt, me and Trent

It was kind of a nasty, misty night, but thankfully there wasn’t too much rain to deter the actual fire. We mingled with the other “zombies” and hung out by the fire. There were some pretty epic costumes- even a zombie panda (who ended up being a friend of ours from church, but we had no clue until we saw her the next morning).

There was also a gentleman there who was “couch surfing” in Qingdao, just for the night. He came to the bonfire equipped with his accordion and after a short speech introducing himself and where he was from (France, I think), began playing us some tunes.

We all enjoyed his antics until a lady from the hotel came over and told the guy in charge that if we wanted to continue to stay, that we would have to pay her some money. Everyone was willing to chip in a bit of money so that we could stay (bribery at its finest), but as soon as we paid, she changed her mind and still made sure everyone left by threatening to call the cops. Obviously no one wanted any trouble, especially since we were all “visitors” in this country, so we packed up the party and left. There was a bar a short distance away that we decided to relocate to. We spent the rest of the evening there before heading back to our apartment.

All in all, it was quite an eventful evening… never a dull moment in China! Happy Halloween!