First Impressions

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Amazingly, I didn’t have any back pain from my bed. Notice I didn’t say the word “mattress.” I’m not complaining, it’s just a big culture shock here…. But it’s a good culture shock! I'm loving it so far! For breakfast there was freshly boiled Tang to drink and some interesting Chinese dishes. I opted for the stale bread.

We didn’t have tickets to any events today, so we took the subway to an old temple that was surrounded by some small lakes. We pretty much just walked around, but it was just so weird taking it all in… It’s something I’ve always seen on the travel channel or discovery channel, but I was seeing it with my very own eyes. Old temples from hundreds, maybe even over thousands of years ago, tons of asian people (go figure), crazy food, crazy drivers (a traffic light is only a suggestion here), crazy bikers, nasty-crap bathrooms, sick kittens in cages waiting to be cooked for dinner… you get everything here.

We went out to dinner to a, go figure, Chinese restaurant, and like usual, nobody spoke English. When we were ordering, the waiter would babble in Chinese, they’d speak German, and both would make all of these crazy hand gestures. It was like an intense game of Sherades. We even resulted to drawing a picture of a river to order water, and drawing a picture of a duck for duck. It was great. We had sooooo much food for dirt-cheap. I felt guilty it was so cheap. When we were done eating, the waiter came back in with a plate of…. Mystery stuff….. He pointed to our duck drawing, and we then realized it was the leftovers of the duck. I think that was there way of saving the “best for last.” We didn’t want to insult him, so we tried it… Or at least attempted to try it.

Some of the guys wanted some Schnapps after dinner. Not knowing how to ask for Schnapps, one of the guys grabbed the waiter by the arm, escorted him to the bar, and pointed to the containers of Schnapps. He even took a shot with them ☺

After that exciting ordeal, we crossed the street and sat down in another restaurant with a tv. They ordered beer, whipped out their German flag, and popped a squat in front of the China-Germany men’s basketball semi-final. It was like Hope versus Calvin! The Chinese would score a basket, and the Germans would be swearing, the Germans would score, and who knows what the Chinese were saying. It was great. Not to mention people there just drop the food on the floor of whatever they don’t like. It’s like I’m back home with the dogs!

China is so great. I really can’t describe it. Would I take a family vacation here? No. Would my mom like it here? Probably not. Would I recommend it? MOST DEFINITELY! It’s such an eye opener. I just loooooove it! The people are so friendly, hilarious, and the culture is so interesting, patriotic, and different. Everything is just so new! I guess you could say that the so called “culture shock” is exhilarating!

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Photos

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