Posts Tagged ‘china’

The Honest Truth About Chinese Toilets

March 9th, 2010

 

DSCN4188Maybe you’ve never really thought about it but, are bathrooms the same everywhere on earth? Of course not. So it shouldn’t surprise you that in China one must often squat to use the toilet. There are western-style toilets around, usually for the handicapped, or in western-style places, like hotels, KFC, McDonald’s, etc. I guess if you wanted to, you could probably manage to visit China and never use a squat toilet, but why miss out on the fun? Shortly before the 2008 Olympics and my first trip to China, my dad forwarded me a silly email, (clearly written by someone like this guy (not my dad)), ridiculing China for having squat toilets. I think my dad was trying to scare me or at least just jesting. Personally I wasn’t afraid of squat toilets per se, but afraid of using them incorrectly. Like what happened if I uh,..went to the bathroom, on my pants? That’d be a shitty situation. (har har!) Long story short, that never happened and I learned it wasn’t all that difficult, in fact now I’m totally okay with it. All it took a little practice, and remembering to bring a package of tissues with you wherever you go.

I had,in fact, considered writing a blog post about toilets in China, but this post from the Lost Laowai Blog covers it pretty well so I’ll share it with you.

“The Women’s Bathroom in China — The Honest Truth about Chinese Toilets”

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Guangzhou & Shenzhen

March 2nd, 2010

Note: These posts are a little late, as I’m already back from my trip and started school again earlier this week. They’re late because didn’t have nearly as much time as I thought I would to post them while traveling. Now you know.

Guangzhou was the first stop on our tour of southern China. Getting off the airplane was nice, I didn’t need to wear my coat, and what’s this?IMG_1367 There was actually green vegetation outside! Something Tyler nor I had seen for at least a couple months. Since we were only in Guangzhou for about a day, we simply roamed around, checked out the Pearl River, sampled some of the good local foods (Egg McMuffins are nothing compared to the egg biscuit I had!) and in the evening went tor a night ferry ride on the Pearl, to see the beautifully lit up buildings and bridges.

The next day, about an hour train ride later and we were in Shenzhen, mere kilometers from the border to Hong Kong. We didn’t do a lot in Shenzhen because it’s mostly just a border city and shopping haven for those coming from Hong Kong to buy cheap goods. Not to mention, so much of the shopping and eateries were still closed for the Chinese New Year “golden week” (what they call their week long national holiday). Thus there wasn’t a lot to do in the city, but it was alright, we relaxed and had some really spicy noodles as well as some local beer while we planned on how to get to Hong Kong, as well as what we’d do when we arrived.

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The Ancient City of Pingyao

February 3rd, 2010

Today was the first day of my vacation, if you don’t count the traveling I did overnight. It all began last night, at the Xi’an train station. When I arrived, the station, like I expected, was packed to walls. There were people seated on every available space as well as standing and waiting for their trains. Being so close to Chinese New Year, the train system in China is being stressed to its limits. After a two hour wait for my train, we finally took off at a max speed of 120 KPH toward Pingyao. I had from about 11:00PM to 6:15AM to sleep on the train, but due to the jerky motions and stops and starts most of my sleep was pretty unfulfilling. As a result I think I was just as tired when I finally arrived in Pingyao as I was when I first went to sleep.

When I arrived in Pingyao it was still dark. I didn’t really know where to go but I simply followed the other people to the train station exit. On the outside of the train station I must have been asked if I needed a taxi at least 5 or 6 times. I didn’t. The hostel I was looking for was only a couple kilometers away, and I wanted to see the city early in the morning before most people were awake. I stopped for breakfast, and ate some sort of noodles and bread, though I don’t really know what it was called.

My first look at the old city of Pingyao was beautiful. The surrounding city wall and the old buildings within, give it a very quiet and ancient feeling, like stepping back in time a bit. » Read more: The Ancient City of Pingyao

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