best signage

ok, so this place does have the best bad english translation signage of all.

best t-shirt slogan:
"milk fed"

best ashtray sign:
"kill the cigarette place"

best 'keep out' sign:
"visitor prohibition"

misery loves western toilets

nothing cheers a girl up more than stumbling upon a western style toilet! they are the gem of the trip. there's another professor who adores them as much as i do and i told her i found one at this museum we stopped at and she literally ran for it. western cans are usually for handicapped, but when it comes to using "hole in the floor" i am indeed handicapped. (in fact this signage on this one said "invalid only").

at the restaurant yesterday i really had to go .... i had held it all day and it was time to let go ... but the only thing is the restroom floor was coated in a layer of grease, so it was impossible to get traction, and thus, hit the hole. imagine trying to pee with one leg on a dock and one on a boat slowing pulling away.... and being relaxed enough to pee. doesn't quite work, so i closed up shop and just waited till we got back to the hotel.

first impression of china

ok, so i should probably share my first impressions of mainland china. you know how they say first impressions last a lifetime or something like that? anyway .... we were on the bus to our hotel or theme park or something like that and we were driving along the main drag and passed a bus stop where a man was holding his butt-nekkid kid in a sort of squat position, bouncing him up and down ... the kids knees were up by his ears and the rest of him was just hanging out for the rest of the world to see. we were like "what the .....?" and "jason" was just like "he's just trying to get his kid to go poop." we were like "uh, on the sidewalk?" and he's like "uh .... yea" ... in a tone that was like "where else do you expect him to go."

not too long later i saw a guy peeing on the side of the road ... at least he was doing it into a bush ... and then there's the spitting. everyone spits, everywhere and often. oh, and my friend stephanie warned me about this, but they don't use kleenex/tissue here for blowing noses .... they just blow it all out and let it land where it lands. snot rockets abound. there's no covering of mouths when coughing or sneezing either. oh, and no napkins are given at restaurants either. we always have to ask them, which is an ordeal unto itself..... the last time i tried asking for them i was given a plaid wool blanket. but when we do get them, they are in the form of kleenex. i came prepared and brought some huggies wet wipes with me, and let's just say they are gold.

shifty tour guide

i have not taken to "jason" too well ... we just get the feeling we're being taken for a ride by him ... we prepaid our tour fees, which included meals .... so when we got taken out to lunch yesterday by the garment maker/fashion designer jason and our bus driver conveniently joined us (tour guides never eat with the tour group) ... so this makes me wonder what he did with the lunch fee we pre-paid? i bet our friend "jason" just make a nice little payment to himself .... he's not even letting us keep the ticket stubs to our visits to museums and such .... he's one shady dude .... giving everyone the bad vibe. when we first landed, he asked me if i had a job for him in america! oh well .... just trying to roll with it .....

thank god cecilia and i found this internet place. we tried to ask for directions from our hotel, but "jason" wouldn't let us speak to the hotel staff, he just told us to walk around and we'll find one if we go "that way," pointing to the marshlands. so cecilia and i did our best international sign language to two blokes on the street and asked them for "internet" and "email" station. they pointed in a nicely-lit direction, so we headed that way.

we came to a nice hotel and decided to ask them. while waiting at the concierge desk a totally blitzed local with red eyes and a redder face screamed "HELLO!!!!!!!" to us and asked us what we needed. we did our internet/email universal hand signals and he totally got it and offered to walk us over. but this being a professional hotel, recognized that he was in no position to cross streets, let alone walk, let alone be conscious in this present state, so they assigned a bell boy to walk us over to internet land.

here's a side note ... the people here are taller than taiwanese, but skinnier. way skinnier. as in their belts go around them one and a half times. i am not kidding -- they have to wrap them around to the back belt loop. so this guy was a one-and-a-halfer too, but dressed in a snappy white outfit and dandy white cap. he took us up to the internet place -- we never would have found this place on our own -- so we happily tipped him with our hong kong money (you can use HK money here, since the rates are comparable to the chinese RMB -- HK $ is actually worth a little more!).

so this internet place is unlike any other we've seen. you know how i said we're in poverty striken land here? this is probably one of the most sleek, modern places i've been, including US! remember in that movie "9-to-5" where there were just rows and rows of desks with typewriters? it's the same idea here, but all desks with flat screen monitors, webcams and fancy headphones. there must be 300 workstations here ... music playing ... no lighting ... drinks available .... clean keyboards ... lumbar support chairs ... and it's about $1 U.S. per hour.