Random Thoughts

We got here on Sunday and the Dolton Hotel is pretty amazing. About 80% of the Hunan adoptions come through this hotel to finish their paperwork. Like the hotel in Beijing this hotel only has single beds. Stiff-as-oak single beds. We checked in and our tour guide, Michelle (they all take English names to make us feel comfortable) took care of everything as usual. Changsha is comparable to a Houston or Miami. Pretty big, but not one of the major cities even though it has almost 10 million people equivalent to New York.

Our first destination was to a local store where we could buy water. Remember, we can’t drink the water or use ice or eat anything that does not have a shell like watermelon so we have to use bottled water. She took us on a trip to a store called Wacko where we purchased everything we needed including formula and were able to piss off the locals by invading their stores. As usual, we were a walking tourist attraction. An even slightly over-weight Chinese person is about as rare as a Chinese person in Des Moines.

What else can I say. Lays potato chips come in flavors such as Cucumber and Fried Chicken Wing (which we both purchased and is illustrated to the right; though kinds hard to see) Knock-offs of every major label brand are everywhere. My show junkie of a wife can pickup every popular shoe brand for $3. Beer is sold in vending machines. It is perfectly acceptable to spit in public even when surrounded by strangers. Chinese people have no sense of personal space and will get right in your face and check you out like it was no big thing. Chinese food here is so not like what it is in the states. I have actually been eating it everyday for a week and have only gotten a little tired of it. The cities we have seen are absolutely beautiful, urban and a little weird. Chinese traffic is polite but insane. There are parts to animals I never knew existed that could be turned into soup. Chinese laundry service rocks and they give more care to your old paid of ripped up boxers than your dry cleaners do for your favorite dress shirt.

China is host of the 2008 Olympics. These are the mascots and when their names are put together it spells out “Welcome to Beijing” Construction is crazy. There are cranes everywhere. A guy in the biz said that it is hard to get concrete in the US because everything is being routed here to get ready for the games.

Here are Chinese versions of current movies. They play the actual movies with English but have Chinese subtitles.

More observations later.