Tourist in China

China is definitely as lush and green as shown in travel magazine photos. The Summer Palace is absolutely beautiful. It is one of those places you think to yourself, how wonderful it would be to live in if I were royalty.

Apparently people were on vacation for the national Labor Day, so it was a bit crowded. I now know what it must feel like to live in a county with over 1 billion people. Even in major tourist areas, the majority of people are East Asian. Even with the crowds, you can still feel the peaceful vibes that would inspire names such as Garden of Harmonious Interests and Hall of Happiness and Longevity.

Culture realization of the week:
I definitely did not expect to be surprised about the bathroom situation. I knew that most washrooms were floor toilets, a.k.a a hole in the ground. I knew that toilet paper and hand washing facilities might be limited. But what I did not expect was the line situation. As a universally expected, most women’s washrooms in popular places have lines. But in Beijing, the “lines” are much more aggressive than those in my past experience. Like the NY subways, you essentially pick a door stall to stand in front of and try to slip in when the door opens before anyone else can get in. In very crowded situations, I even saw multiple people coming out of one stall. Luckily, multiple people did not try to slip into the stall with me.

-Andrea