China Syndrome, Part I

This is approximately week 2 of my vacation. Dad's got a really bad cold/flu thing and I have the sniffles, so we're all going to rest for the next couple of days. I want to take a day just to wander the streets and take pictures of the vendors and stores (and of course, all the bad Engrish signs).

Where to start...First, Air Canada is awesome (when did that happen?!). They have mini-TVs built in to every airplane seat, and you can watch all the latest movies/TV shows, so an 11-hour flight isn't quite as unbearable anymore (they have Pushing Daisies and Ugly Betty episodes! <3). The food was way better this time, too--we even got served Cups O' Noodles as a snack. xD

The new Beijing airport is ridiculously huge. Marble floors, floor-to-ceiling windows, giant ferns everywhere...it's so extravagant. We had to take a C-train just to go from Customs to Baggage Pickup.

As expected, the weather is really warm. Every day is around 34 degrees Celsius. After the first day, though, you get used to the heat. Everything has changed! They have big LCD screens on the sides of buildings, and sometimes they play the latest Coldplay or The Killers single! ;o We stayed in Beijing for a couple of days and went to visit the Bird's Nest/Water Cube. The air quality is so bad, it's like there's this perpetual fog hanging over the city. Except the fog can kill you 'cause it's all pollution. Unfortunately, that day, all the main gates were closed and there were barbed wire fences surrounding everything, so all we could do was poke our cameras through the fence holes to get a picture.




There's lots of hype and propaganda for the upcoming Games, and we met this guy on the street (he then proceeded to yell Olympic cheers at us xD).


We went to different parks and such, the most notable one being the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park/China Nationalities Museum. We must've wandered around for 5 hours, but we only covered about 30% of the entire park. My parents participated in this party game thing and ended up winning!



After those days, we all headed down to Jinan in Shandong province (my birthplace!) to visit family and hit up all the major landmarks. The air is much better here, I can actually see the blue(-ish) sky!

Now, there are two things I am deathly afraid of doing here:
1) Crossing the road (I've been nearly run over twice--the little green "You can cross now" man LIES), and
2) Lake/water-related activities (I had a traumatic experience with a paddle boat the last time I was here)

So naturally, on my second day here we went to Baotu Spring Park and Da Ming Hu (rough translation: Giant Lake) and rented a boat to explore the waters. It wasn't a paddle boat this time (thank God) and my Dad had great fun as ship's captain, ensuring that we would not die in a watery grave (I really can't steer a boat). :D




Family is all good and well. Everyone's busy with their own lives now so I don't see everybody every day anymore (which is ironic, because I used to dislike big gatherings, but now I miss it). But, as Twill would say, every day is an ADVENTURE!

Anyway, I'll stop here today. There are lots more stories and pictures, but I'm saving the juicy stuff for your postcards. I'll do a picspam later-ish.

P.S. I hate the secret Internet filters here. >.< I can't visit your blog, Kris! T_T