Trip Of A Lifetime

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Do I Smell Funny?

Okay, so we only have 4 days left of our travels before touching back down at home in Melbourne and I have to ask the question... Do we smell funny? Think about it. We've been eating nothing but full on Chinese food for the past month and that stuff must be seeping out of our pores by now. I guess what I'm saying is, be prepared. Try not to recoil and if it's still with us after a few days feel free to say something so that we can take steps.

That said, maybe I'll talk a bit about China. It's so hard to describe the place without photos though, thatI'll talk about some experiences. The first is the changes. This place is in such a state of flux it's amazing. Half of Shanghai was built in the last 15 years and everywhere you go there is major building going on. I urge you to come here sooner rather than later. You won't regret it because it's so fascinating, but if you leave it more than 10 years I just don't think it'll be the same.

The other thing I wanted to talk about was the staring. I never expected that people would look at me with much more that a passing glance, but here in China (especially in the countryside) people really bore holes into you with their stares. Adie has been particularly popular with several girls asking to have their photo taken with him and a gaggle of them exclaiming "Wow! He's so good looking." Luckily he's not getting too big an ego.

What else? While here we've also seen something like 15 weddings. Everyone is getting married here and it's such a big deal with both traditional red dresses and western white ones. It's pretty easy to get married here though, you just need three copies of a photo of the two of you together. Take them to the local government office and fill out some paperwork, a couple of minutes later you're married and it's time to organise a big party.

That's all for now. The tv is too loud but we can't turn it down or off because then we'll have to call housekeeping to use the "special" button to turn it up again for us and there's a movie we want to watch. Stay well and we may see you in a couple of days.

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