China - miscellaneous

Okay, I have been meaning to write this entry for a while. It's been almost a month since we returned from our travels in China. Here are some photos and videos that I still wanted to share.

I got the impression the Chinese LOVE to shop. Shopping areas in every city we saw ranging from the storefronts to the old market stall type to large modern malls. This photo is from a 6 (or 7) story mall in Beijing. There were a few within blocks of each other!
There was a Lego store in the mall and outside of the store was a Lego lady and her baby who shared a bench with me.

I saw some very interesting architecture in China. This photo shows one example.

Meals were always an interesting endeavor. Several places offer a "set meal" that contains several items/dishes. This photo shows a fairly fancy one. I really like the spoon/chopstick rests they had in the restaurant (to the right of the tray).

The cities are large with much roadway. It was surprising to see that most of those roads have landscaping - from long ground works to planters on bridges or overpasses. This photo shows a bit of that along with a street light in the shape of the Chinese Lucky Knot. It was taken outside of Xi'an on the way to the terracotta soliders.

In every hotel we stayed in, the plastic keycard was required to "run" the electricity in the room. This picture shows our keycard in the slot next to the switches for "do not disturb", "make up the room", and the lights. When we remove the keycard, all lights and outlets have no power.

Outside our room in the hallway (in Beijing) is a doorbell!! Also if the "do not disturb" switch is on, this is where it lights up.

This video was taken in Shanghai from the front seat of the van in traffic. Listen for the horns and notice that at the traffic light (that is red), we turn right without even slowing down as we merge into the middle traffic lane. And this wasn't close to some of the white-knuckle riding we did around the country in much heavier traffic.

The next 3 photos are of road signs that amused me. They remind people not to litter, not to drive drunk, and of the weight limit. Hopefully you can click on the picture to get a larger image and see the signs better (written in Chinese and English).

In an earlier blog entry I wrote that Ron & Ellen weren't allowed to drive. I was mistaken - Ron has gotten his Chinese license (right?) and does drive in the crazy traffic on occasion. We didn't get to experience that but Brett and Leslie did.

The photo above shows the work bikes used to transport almost anything. These bikes are loaded with water bottles. We saw some bikes overloaded with items way above the person's head!

This video shows one street in Shanghai that appears to be bike (pedal & motorized) only. We were entertained by the large herds of bikes surging forward when the light changed and had to record it...and share it. Notice that the bikes too also use horns/bells.