- Bathrooms
- Squat Toilets: Actually not that bad, but always mysteriously dirty and wet. Why are they so wet all over? Is it pee? Water? This one is super clean though:
- Future Toilets: Is this on an airplane? No, it's in a mall.
- There is like a 30% chance you'll get toilet paper. I've taken to carrying a little thing of tissues everywhere.
- There is a like a 20% chance you'll get soap.
- I twice used a kind of trough that ran along the side of a room. There were about three foot high barriers one squatted within. Others' waste rolled right on underneath you.
- Segregated stalls:
- Toilet Paper
- When there actually is toilet paper, it is weirdly stretchy and rips off in a feathered mess.
- Bring Out Your Dead
- Thrice I've seen men riding carts down the streets calling out something in a sing-song that sounds and looks just like a scene from Monty Python.
- Spitting/Hacking
- Just go ahead and hock a loogie anywhere.
- Nail Clipping
- Okay in public.
- Fingernails: a bartender (while working), a flight attendant (while working)
- Toenails: guy on stool on the sidewalk
- Half a Shirt
- Chinese men rock this style of lifting up the bottom half of their shirt so their guts hang out. Catch a cool breeze.
- Scooters
- Scooters are an important mode of transportation and are totally lawless. They will run you over.
- Cars are Terrifying
- Park anywhere.
- Run any light.
- Plow through pedestrians.
- Honk all the time, for anything.
- Crossing the street is like Frogger where people yell at you in Chinese.
- Move to the Right?
- When walking head on on a sidewalk, like playing chicken with someone, I default to the right, but that's not it ... the left? It doesn't matter. There are no paths on the sidewalk. It's survival of the fittest.
- Shouting
- Oh my god the shouting.
- Cutting in Line
- Cut in line for taxis, subway tickets, getting on buses, getting on the subway, getting food, anything. Cut away.
- Riding in Taxis
- is crazy. Not for the fainthearted or carsick. They mean business. They go fast and get you there. Passing, honking, cutting people off, skirting pedestrians and scooters.
- Staring
- I must look so weird, covered in boogers or something.
- Mystery Water
- Unknown quantities of mystery water. Puddles, dripping off buildings, dripping mysteriously from nowhere.
- Hovering Waiter/tress
- They just stand there waiting for you to order. Flip through the menu, talk to your friends, they wait silently.
- Water
- We can't drink the water, so we have to buy bottled water all the time. Even for brushing our teeth.
- If a waiter/tress brings you water, it just has to sit there.
- Squat Sitting
- People rock this amazing chill position on the street all the time. Same as over a squat toilet, but you just hang.
- Tired waiting for the bus? Squat.
- Wrapped Lemon
- A bartender unwrapped a lemon. It was in a clear, plastic wrapper like a Twinkie.
- Wrapped Dishes
- More than once encountered dishes at a restaurant wrapped in plastic.
- Snot Rockets
- You are not on a hike or run. You are on the sidewalk. Why?
- Too Much Food
- Holy serving size. Stop ordering food, Josh. Every time it is too much.
- Packaging Tape
- Can be used for hanging posters, hanging framed posters, lining apartment hallways, fixing things on buses, just sticking a roll on the wall at the airport.
- Crooked Fixtures
- So many things are installed imperfectly and not straight, like the outlets and light switches at a five star hotel. Fill hole gaps in with putty beneath the fixture. Oh, how is this possible.
- Slippery Floors
- Sidewalks, hallways, bathrooms, stairs, pedestrian overpasses... all often feature marble or marble-like surfaces that, when coated with mystery water, become slippery avenues of death.
- Crooked Sidewalks
- Not for the blind or disabled.
- Napkins
- Maybe a 40% chance you can score a napkin.
- Front Backpacks
- Let's all wear our backpacks on the front. Even when walking down the street with friends.
- High Heels
- Ladies like pointy footwear, which I don't understand with all the broken, upturned bricks in the sidewalk, puddles everywhere. Even when climbing 800 stairs to temples.
- Garbage Truck Music
- Garbage trucks are like ice cream trucks!
- Heard: "It's a Small World."
- Unlucky Numbers
- 4 and 13
- The word for 4, sì, and the word for dead, sǐ, are so similar that 4 is the most unlucky number.
- The luckiest number is 8.
- Our current apartment does not have a 4th floor, a 13th floor, a 14th floor, or a 24th floor, according to the elevator buttons.
- This elevator made some fixes with tape (!), but the screen says otherwise.
- Dogs/Kittens
- So many dogs and kittens.
- Josh has been taking pictures of all the dogs. I think he misses Millicent.
*Note that I am a Type A clean/neat freak. Also obsessed with weird behaviors/mysteries. Spying, eavesdropping, looking in windows. You know this. It takes this adventure to the next level.
