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