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Saturday, October 8, 2011

Embracing my Asianness

In an effort to embrace my Asian heritage, I decided to do a blog post on my vacation in China. I went to China for the sixth time over the summer, and I visited some pretty interesting places while there. Some were touristy...most were not. I spend most of my time with family.


What I hate about China is that there are so many people everywhere. And I mean EVERYWHERE. Plus, the traffic was absolutely horrific. A trip that would usually take 10 minutes would end up taking like 30. Take a look.


This is the traffic that I ran into on a daily basis. 

But other than that, I had a pretty good time. I ventured outside of Beijing this time, and went to Shanghai and Suzhou. Let me just me just say, I LOVE SHANGHAI. It is such an awesome city; It's developed and modern and gorgeous. Look at this view. 



Tell me that isn't a spectacular view? Just look at it. Isn't it amazing? Yes it is. 

Hands down, that was the best part of my trip. Even though I only stayed there for like two days. If I ever had to live in China, I would choose Shanghai. While in Shanghai, I also got to go to the FINA World Championships, and watch synchronized swimming. These were NATIONAL teams. The people who would be going to the olympics. I was absolutely in awe. Their timing and rhythm and skill just made my jaw drop. The lifts were impeccable. Look at this. 


How is this even possible?

Also, a place that I went to on a daily basis was starbucks. Something you may not know about me is that I love coffee. If I could wake up early enough in the mornings, I would make coffee everyday. But in China, I was never really in a rush so I was able to get coffee a lot. There's a Starbucks in China. You probably really don't care about this as much, but it was a cool picture, because you can see Starbucks written in english and in chinese. Also, I can't find many of the other pictures I took. Stupid technology.


My favorite thing to do in China though, is to shop and bargain. It's difficult to find a place here where you can bargain, and bargaining can actually be really fun. The shop owners get angry when you set the price too low. And no offense to them or anything, it's really funny. Usually. It can get terrifying when they get angry at you and start yelling. I bargained something down from 160 yuan to 60 yuan. I was so proud. 

I just realized that this blog post went from wanting to talk about Chinese culture, to random bits about my time in China. But oh well. It still works. 

1 comment:

  1. I also really enjoyed Shanghai -- especially haggling for bargains. The shop owners always insisted loudly that they would give me "good price". It was a great visit.

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