Tongli

We recently welcomed our friend Tom from Milwaukee (although we met him in Minnesota) for a visit. I love having friends and family visit because I get to see China all over again for the first time through their eyes. I have grown accustomed to so many really strange things here that I often forget how different it is from the US until I see our visitor's eyes bug out of their head upon encountering something that I consider normal!

For Tom's visit, we decided to venture out on a little day trip to the small water town of Tongli. There are lots of water towns around Shanghai (a nearby town was used in filming Mission Impossible 3). They are unique because the main part of the town is built up around creeks and small rivers that run through the center. The towns are crissed crossed by a series of bridges and much of the daily life centers around the water. People wash their clothes and veggies in the river, fish, and unfortunately dump some garbage and sewage in there as well. It's best described by the pictures below.

*Warning*- Tongli is also famous as being the home of the China Sex Museum (which we obviously couldn't pass up since we were there anyway). Regardless of the content of the museum, the grounds are beautiful as it used to be a private girls school- how ironic. Graphic pics below so if you are prudish, you may want to skip the last couple photos.

A typical Tongli canal view.

Tourist boats which take you around the town.

Tongli ladies doing the laundry.

The old men sitting around and watching the tourists walk by.

Spare roof tiles.



Another shot of the old streets.

Inside one of the historic courtyards of Tongli. How cool would it have been to live in a place like this (well, actually, it would have been down right cold- there's not much insulation)!

My friend Jodi checking out the Tongli towel head fashion. For some reason which we couldn't figure out, several of the older ladies were wearing hand towels on their heads...

Accidents happen. A 3-wheeled scooter took a curve a little too fast and nailed the large cement ball right in front of us. Good thing we weren't a few seconds earlier or this would have been us instead of the ball! Amazingly, no one got hurt!

Tom and I getting ready to check out the Sex Museum.

The beautiful gardens of the sex museum- most of the statues you see in the distance were X-rated (hee-hee).

The title of this piece was "A woman's dependence"...well, I don't know about that- should have been titled "A man's dependence!"

My favorite statue in the museum. Title "The only part of the body you can't chain down". Pretty much.

McDonalds!

Lately I have noticed a plethora of American chain restaurants popping up around town. Here is a brief overview:
1)Baskin Robbins - pretty much exactly the same flavors as in the US, and about $3.50 for a single scoop- ouch.
2) KFC- The Colonel rules. THE MOST POPULAR place to eat in all of China. Pathetic. I've never actually tried it here but I guarantee it's chock full of trans fats.
3) Dunkin Donuts- The newest addition to the city and I must say, my personal favorite. After nearly two years of deprivation, a chocolate glazed never tasted so good. But, they have definitely "China-fied" it. You can choose several variations of green tea flavored donuts as well as pork floss and seaweed. Yuck.
4) Dairy Queen- good, same as back in the USA. Cheap and full of local milk products so probably contains melamine (see previous posts).
5) Pizza Hut and Papa Johns- Both have taken on a local flavor and are no where near as good as home- offers include tuna pizza. Between the two, I like PJ's for take out and PH for eat in (both offer very nice eat in options compared to the US).
6) Starbucks- Like the States, there is one on every corner. Very similar to the US in their offerings; however, all flavored drinks are much less sweet. Mega expensive so mostly full of foreigners and rich Chinese.
7) McDonalds- one word- DELIVERY. Just ordered 2 cheeseburgers and 2 sundaes which were delivered to our apartment within 15 minutes for a total of less than $5.00. Hmm, this could be dangerous.
So if any of you faithful readers actually make it over here and you are hankering for a taste of home- no worries, we got you covered!