Hey guys! I just got back from a long vacation in China. I was there for 8 days plus the 2 days of plane traveling. As I’ve mentioned in my previous post that I went with my 2nd sister to visit my eldest sister there. And a good surprise was my mom was able to come from the US to join us in Beijing. It’s been a really long time since we all girls were able to spend time together. Because my mom lives in the US, my eldest sister lives in Beijing, my second sister lives in the Philippines while I jettison between the US and the Philippines.

We had a great weather in Beijing. It was warm and sunny which was unfortunate for us because we packed clothes for cold weather. Shanghai however was always raining and foggy. In Shanghai we stayed in Holiday Inn Suites. The place is quite far from the city hub. Anyway it was a wonderful hotel. In Beijing, we stayed in my sister’s friend’s apartment. He has this huge apartment and it was really pretty. Thanks Richard for your hospitality.

So here is what I thought of China…particularly Shanghai and Beijing, where we just went.

  1. It’s so freaking big!!! All the tourist stops we went to were so vast. My feet really gave up walking.
  2. Almost everything is done in large-scale. The buildings were impressive. They also have unique architectural design eg. CCTV tower, Bird’s nest, Pearl TV tower, Water Cube.
  3. In some ways it’s similar to Manila especially the traffic. Taxi cab stops in the middle of the road to load passengers, traffic control is poor, and pedestrians jaywalk and cross street even when their side is red.
  4. The population is large. I felt this in Beijing. It seemed like it was rush hour every hour of the day. It was really hard to get a seat in the subway train.
  5. Transportation is really cheap. A bus regular fare is 1RMB, taxi flat rate is 10RMB, while the subway is 2RMB no matter the distance.
  6. I believe labor is cheap too. Just like in the Philippines labor is cheap. We had our hair done in this salon and I was surprised by how many employees the owner has. I thought to myself, does he even get a profit by hiring lots of people? And one more thing I noticed (but correct me if I’m wrong) the employees work like 12 hour shift especially in salons and massage places?
  7. Not a lot of people can understand English but in the Silk Road (the shopping district) they do understand English! I actually liked it that I was able to practice  my rusty and rudimentary Mandarin skill. I even consider working in Beijing just to get a good grip of my mandarin, won’t that be cool?
  8. Food is so good! But make sure to eat in the authentic chinese restaurants.
  9. I don’t want to use the floor toilet again!!! Their public restrooms usually have the floor toilet bowls. There are only few that has stalls with regular toilet bowl. The restrooms are really dirty (most of them) and smells bad.
  10. Shopping in Silk Road was disappointing. I’m a shopping veteran of 168 mall here in Manila where their goods come from China. Most of the items I saw in Silk Road I also see in 168. However many sellers in Silk Road won’t give you a fair price for their items. I can get some things cheaper in 168. Also it’s hard to know the real price in Silk Road because they’re starting price is really high like in hundreds. But the actual price of the item is only 10% of the hundred. So you need to practice you’re bargaining skills really well.

Related posts:

  1. Going to China
  2. Vivitar happy in China
  3. If you find yourself in Beijing…
  4. Sightseeing Beijing part 1
  5. Why women in China do not get breast cancer?