Toto we are Not in Kansas Anymore

I love visiting foreign counties and cultures.  If things were not different that they are at home there wouldn't be much point in traveling.  I especially like learning about new food.  Now having said all that let me assure you China does not disappoint.

When I first arrived in Shanghai there were water dispensers in the airport to fill up your water bottles.  However, when I went to use one all it had was HOT water.  I thought this was odd so I went to the next one to see if it had cold water.  Nope.  Then at restaurants they pour you water but it is HOT water..That is is just what they do.  Our client Phoebe told us that you cannot drink the tap water at all so all water must be boiled and also drinking the hot water is the custom as it aids digestion.

Crossing the road.  They have many cross walks but really you take your life in your hands.  The cars do not stop.  They do not even try to stop.  You have to learn to put our your secret power stop hand and force them too.  Fortunately the traffic is usually moving slow than you are you you can effectively weave your way thru traffic.  We did run into an accident on the way home on Saturday.  Actually it was blocking the road.  Not really sure how this happened.

We are lucky enough to have a washer/dryer in the road.  This is actually great.  One machine and it does both.  You just have to figure out how to use it.  With a little help from teammate Maria I did and it worked perfectly!!

To borrow a phrase from our teammate Kempton all of our teams are the start of a good joke. "What happens when an Brazilian, a Costa Rican, and Australian and an American go into a bar.....well it does freak out the wait staff I can tell you that.  We tried to order a pitcher of beer and it took 5 waiters to figure out what we wanted.  We got 4 bottles of beer so we were happy.

It is like everything is written in Chinese here  ....Oh Wait!   Seriously, these are the safety instructions in the hotel which is a very nice hotel that caters to business people.  Are you able to catch all that.  I assume these are the safety instructions because it says police at the bottom and there is a picture of the safe.   I actually tried very hard to learn some of the language but right now as far as learning the actual characters but I am only at about 6.  It takes about 3000 to read a newspaper.  So I can't tell if a building is a bank, a laundry, a grocery store or a restaurant. We are fortunate that Karen our Pyxera guide armed us with list of places to go.


I have tried a bunch of new food.  Honestly I am not sure what some of it is and I probably do not want to know. Some I like and some not so much.   Dragon fruit was new for me and I did like it.





We did go to the famous TsingDao Beer museum yesterday and this was fun.  We toured the history and actually got to see the packaging line. After the tour we got some beer served in a bag.  This is something you only see in Qingdao.

This next section is for the ladies. Squat Toilets  I have been pretty much all over the planet and I have seen these before but I have always been able to find alternatives.  Not so much here.  As they say it is a learning experience.  This one is at our office.  It is very clean and at least it is not shared by the men.  You still have to come armed with your own paper though.  I have to admit I was not even sure how to approach it at first,  Which way do you stand etc.  Now one week in we still look for western alternatives but we can handle if we have too.

Anyway - today we are off to Laoshan a park in a natural area with a famous Taoist temple.  So off to breakfast!!!