China 2010, Part 3

No prefacing (save this, apparently) needed.

August 28th - Did what every good visitor to Qingdao should do today; drank beer, ate clams. Yummy.
Also, the fresh-brewed beer from Tsingtao comes in bags. Makes it a bit harder to pour...

August 29th - Finally the sun came out! Back to the beach!

August 30th - More sun, more beach. Not much to elaborate on.
Also, cars stopping for pedestrians crossing the street is like fighting space unicorns using nukes....it doesn't fucking happen.

August 31st - Another dumpling place tonight. I had multicultural dumplings; normal white dumplings, yellow dumplings (A bit of corn in the dough), and black dumplings (Octopus ink in the dough). Yay for not being racist!

September 1st - Train ride to Tianjin today. Said goodbye to various relatives. Sadness.

September 2nd - First and only day in Tianjin. It's a whole lot of road and not much building. Went to a free museum during the day. Turns out they make you pay for the toilet paper. I guess that's one way to make money.

Also learned how over-embellished things in China get. A sign which read "Treasure Hall" had a politician's mouthful of Chinese on it. Which, when translated, read something along the lines of, "Very antique rare most ancient best exquisitely preserved treasures of China hall".

September 3rd - Bus ride to Beijing, then the plane ride back. Trip over.

Coming back from China, just to put some interesting facts out there as pros/cons...

Pros:
All streetlights had timers, so you could see exactly how long you had to cross or how long you had to wait at the red light.
Treads on the street for blind people to follow.
Lots of different meats.
No graffiti/vandalism anywhere. I saw one piece, total.

Cons:
Almost no traffic laws. Cars going wherever they could.
Never sure what meat you're eating.
Everyone lives in apartments. Some of them are quite nice though.

Other stuff:
Justin Bieber is much more popular there because the Chinese, in general, admire men having some feminine qualities. Why they think Bieber is male, I'll never know...
Also figured out why Asians in general are so thin. Rice is meant to be eaten one grain at a time. By the time you get through a bowl, one grain at a time, you're too goddamn frustrated to eat any more.

Next post: Comparing Chinese and English: Why Chinese is better.