Chinese food
Chinese food is nothing like what you get in Chinese restaurants/takeaways at home – it’s much spicier, uses less meat that’s cut into small pieces, sometimes involves cheese and fried egg (which I’ve never seen in England) and is much, much less gloopy (this is A Good Thing). Fried rice is the only dish that is similar. When I return, I’m going to China Town in London again – to see it through fresh, more experienced, eyes 🙂
Toilets
We need to talk about toilets.  Sorry, but if I have to go through this, you’re coming with me 😉
I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I never thought that the toilets in China would be worse than those in the poorer SE Asian countries I’d already visited. Â And it’s not just the facilities, but the social norms that have really challenged me. Â Their lack of privacy is astonishing and disconcerting (although does support what one of my piano teachers had said about never returning to live in China because of the lack of personal space – everyone expects to know everything about their neighbours’ lives). Â It brings new meaning to the phrase “public conveniences”:
But worse than this is the lack of hygiene. Â As you can see in the first photo, there’s a channel that runs along/around the room over which people squat. Â Every minute or so, a jet of what I assume is disinfectant is squirted along the channel. Â But the, er, “heavier stuff” doesn’t always “go with the flow”, so to speak. Â So you’re usually presented with the remnants of someone else’s breakfast. Â Euwwww! I’m not that squeamish but this is gross. Â And it’s not just the communal loos, either – this is what I encountered when I popped to the loo on the waterfalls tour:
