So Long China, catch ya on the flip side.

Considering I see curious similarities between China and India, I'm adopting old habits from five months ago.

Behold, the new golden age of Bizarre Observations in China.
All children have holes in the crotch of their pants, which their parents either cut out, or purchase4 designed in this manner. The parents take the baby, arms tucked under knees and supporting their upper backs, and have their children piss wherever they find themselves. Usually this takes place in the road or on the sidewalk, but today I saw a grandma encourage the child to piss on the floor of a packed local bus, and another young woman encourage her daughter to piss on the floor of the ladies room, while there were dozens of available toilets.
OK, so I wont go into the toilet situation too much, speaking of which, except to say that at some of the less desirable pit-stops, the facilities are in dire condition. There are no stalls, simply a large open-aired trough angled slightly towards a constantly blocked drain that you straddle along side everyone else. I'm under the impression that looking others in the ye is extremely taboo in such conditions, as I imagine is eh the case in men's urinal. I can unfortunately say that Chinese toilets are among the most revolting that I've yet to see, bypassing Turkish toilets by the busload, and just passing Indian.
In accordance to what I've heard other say about Chinese food (except Mark, who loves the stuff), Julie and I have been extremely disappointed. After many bizarre meals (last night, Meat Jam and English Farm was on the menu), Ive accepted the daily fare of noodle soup from the Muslim shops. There is always a small man in a paper hat out front swinging pasta like taffy (for those of you living in the Santa Cruz area), then lacing fingers in the dough and pulling out four or five times to arms-length like they're separating wool. Each strand is two meters long, so you are constantly slurping, trying to avoid flinging spicy sauce in your eye, or Julies eye, or wallowing a strand that still has a meter left to go.
When you meet someone for the first time in China, the standard procedure question, instead of "how are you?", is "have you eaten rice yet?" I love this.
As Ive noted on my facebook page, the piece de resistance, however is the rocket it. My German friend Tobias told me that once he was having a beer with his Chinese friend, who marvelled about how many rockets they must use in a country as foggy and rainy as Germany He explained that during the Olympics and especially dismal weather, Chinese officials shoot a rocket into the sky to clear the clouds or some such ridiculousness. Are you hearing me correctly people? The Chinese are controlling the FRIGGING WEATHER! Consider yourselves forewarned

Last night I dined with 15 Chinese men

Ok, well Julie and three German guys we met were there too, but it was hard to notice their existence over the drunk army of kind but extremely loud men. We were walking back from the beach arouhd midnight in Sanya on the Chinese island of Hainan, when I was called over to have a nice little ganpai (cheers). This is pretty normal, I get this whenever I am out late, being a whitey and all. I decided to endulge in the famous, or rather infamous, Chinese hospitality. When you eat in China, you eat out of a small bowl half full of white rice, and you pull pieces of meat or vegetables out of the big bowls on the table, family style. Hands jut out over the many plates full of tofu, braised bok choy and grilled chicken, agile chopsticks plucking morsels of food. Since we were guests, we paid for nothing, plus our small tea cups full of beer were never empty and our bowls brimming with food. We had nothing to offer them, but nice photo ops for their families back on the mainland, no doubt (Hainan is a vacation spot for Chinese tourists, since its the most southern point in China).The men plopped pieces of food in my bowl to show me that I was welcome at the table, and whenever someoen at the table said 'ganpai', everyone at the table had to stand up, shout something and drain your glass. Keep in mind that this was AFTER we polished off our own beers at the beach. Suddenly, the men all stood up and indicated by their manner of walking that they were drunk, and split. The five of us were left at a table with fifteen half drunk beers and whole un touched plates, the bill taken care of. Gotta love China.

Photos, PHOTOS GALORE!!

So, little miss Swiss Julie and I are happily tramping around Hainan, that big ass island in the south of China. We couldn't swing the cold anymore (people, I was wearing two pairs of socks, long johns, jeans, one tank top, two long sleeved shirts, a sweater, a jacket, a beanie, a scarf and a pair of gloves the other day. Boo.), so we escaped to the most southern point in China. It reminds me of SE Asia, and this makes me very happy. I've put up some pics of the end of Laos and the beginning of China onto my flickr.com account. I wish you could see it here. Its awesome. Nuff said. Check yas lates.