Wednesday 29 October 2008

The Oddities of China

So China's a very strange country.

The first thing I noticed was the spitting. Everyone feels free to just hoark a loogie anywhere and spit it everywhere. In the train station. In a restaurant. On the street. It's all the same. Brandi actually saw two guys shoot a snot rocket in one day! Disgusting!

No one follows the traffic rules. If the light says don't walk, more people walk across the road than when it says it's okay to walk. The cars change lanes whenever they feel like it and turn from any lane they want. They honk at each other constantly as though somehow this is going to stop the other person from doing what they're going to do anyways.

The other day Brandi and I were walking down the street in Beijing and they were spraying some kind of chemical on the trees. We were downwind and didn't have time to escape so for days all I could smell was something similar to the smell of varnish! It burned my lungs and eyes, but the guy standing out in the street spraying it had no protection. Crazy people here.

We are now in a smaller city called Luoyang. The babies here have little suits with holes in the bum so that if they poo their pants, they just poo on the street instead.

The toilets on the train were so disgusting I almost barfed. No wonder the people here get sick. They're massively over populated and the sanitation is non existent. No soap in the bathrooms. I mean come on get with the program.

I'm really excited to start training. I'm tired of being around people constantly. The great wall hike was amazing, it's the least amount of people I've been around since we left home. Ahh home.. So much space. I miss the space. I know... we've only been gone just over a week!

2 comments:

Sifu Robyn Kichko said...

Thanks for the very descriptive story, I actually gagged during the snot rocket part.
I miss your smiling face when we are working our butts off. I bet that once you start training you will stop missing home so much and before you know it, it will be time to come home and you'll be wishing you had more time there.
Take care
Sihing Kichko

Jeff Brinker said...

Keep posting Melanie, we're really enjoying your trip too.