Back In China
The one thing I’ve realized about transportation in China is that nothing is on time. Sorta works out for me since I’m always running late I guess. Ferries, buses, trains, planes–every single method–late.
I took a ferry from Hong Kong to Shenzen, China and then took a shuttle to the airport. I was actually a bit nervous about flying here. I generally don’t like to fly (I know it seems odd because I’m always going somewhere by plane, LOL) but one of the things I’d read about air travel in China was that the planes are more reliable now than they used to be. Not quite sure what that means, but I said a prayer and crossed some fingers when boarding, LOL. I finally got into Shanghai about an hour later than I was supposed to. The city is beautiful at night. Tons of skyscrapers and all of them are beautifully lit. Even though it was Saturday night, I had absolutely no energy to go out. I ended up chatting with this Australian kid who’s visiting Shanghai for a few days. I thought I was the only one who thought some of the habits were…a bit disturbing. It was funny to talk to someone else who was as utterly disturbed by the spitting, coughing etc.
Today I wandered around an area called the Bund. This is supposed to be one of the “must see” areas of Shanghai. Unfortunately, I thought it was rather mediocre. The area is almost like a boardwalk. It’s along the water and there are tons of people strolling around, taking pictures and taking tours. The view of the other side of the river is nice, but it wasn’t anything spectacular. I decided to take the Bund sightseeing tunnel to the other side of the river. This was an…odd? experience. The sightseeing tunnel consisted of these tiny railway cars–and the ride across was supposed to be some sort of “journey” to the center of the earth. But it reminded me of that really funky scene in the older version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory where they are going through that tunnel. Watching that scene in the movie always creeps me out–so it was an even weirder experience going through it myself. Maybe I would have enjoyed it if I was about 5 years old–but at 29 with no small children to entertain, I thought it was just cheesy.
On the other side of the tunnel was the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. The design is really intriguing–and colorful. I decided not to go up–I just didn’t feel like being swamped with stores and various other tourist traps, LOL.
After that I took that creepy ride back through the tunnel and attempted to go to the Bund History Museum…but apparently it’s closed until next year. But there were several females hanging around the entrance who were trying to get me to look at their “art exhibits.” Uh, no thanks.
So today was a pretty uninspiring day. Maybe I just had a bad day today, but all of the things have truly annoyed me about my trip seemed to be magnified today. Maybe it’s because I just came back from Hong Kong. I swear, if another person comes up to me and tries to get me to visit their art exhibit I’m going to scream. And they just approach you out of nowhere! Walking down the street and all of a sudden someone starts chatting you up–seemingly innocent at first–then they hit you up, LOL. I just don’t understand–all of these art exhibits and I’ve only seen one museum with anything remotely interesting in it, LOL.
The spitting got to me today too. It’s just so…disgusting. And everyone does it. Old men. Little old ladies. Kids. AND…I forgot to mention the nose picking. Now I’m sure that we’ve all had those moments of private nose picking that we try to pretend that we don’t do, LOL. But the nose picking is just as common as the spitting around here. Last night on the plane, there was this guy sitting across the isle from me. He was just blatantly picking. And apparently he couldn’t get what he was looking for, because he kept at it for the better part of the flight. When he wasn’t digging, he would blow real hard–without a tissue–I guess just hoping it would fly out, LOL. Then this morning while waiting to cross the street, a teenager was just digging away at the light. Even though it’s so gross–I can’t stop looking. I mean, what is he going to do if/once he gets it out? Is he going to flick? Wipe on his pants? Or just casually touch a light pole? I have seen a lot of flickers here–which is why I guess I’m always staring while they pick–trying to stay out of the line of fire. The third picker I saw today was worse…he was sitting beside me on the train–and started that whole blow real hard without a tissue thing–in my direction. I promptly got up and just stood the rest of the ride, LOL.
Okay, why are all of my posts about bodily functions? I’m really going to try and get away from that, LOL.