China, Nov 2020

I remembered the country as quite peculiar - you can feel its isolation from the rest of the world. The inability to use typical services like google, gmail or popular social media sites like facebook or instagram without the VPN required some preparation in advance. The English language is practically unknown, even in the tourist centres - the only way to communicate was through translators. Instead, QR codes are widespread. They were sometimes the only way to view a menu and place an order at a restaurant, and were used for a mobile pay with Weibo (a Chinese social media app that would be difficult for a tourists to set up). Yes, mobile payments are wildly popular in China, and since European cards won't always work, stacking on RMB is mandatory.

Moving on to the most important thing - food is, by dafault, spicy. One of the first phrases I learned was "bùyào là" - "don’t want spicy food". For my weak European taste buds it was an absolute life-saver. In China, I encountered Sichuan pepper for the first time in my life - a fairly common spice, that gives tongue a characteristic tingles, which I at first took for some kind of allergy. I didn't like it back then, but now, out of sentiment, I use Sichuan pepper often. Staying on the subject of food, plastic was everywhere. Even when ordering boba tea (tapioca tea stores were on every corner) it was packaged in a plastic bag, despite clear indications that it was not needed. After all, I'm going to drink it right away - why would I need a bag? Once I put straw in it, I wouldn't be able to use that bag, because it will spill! Aaaa!

Seniors in China are provided with numerous activities - these are the very social and fun years of their lives. This is evident on the streets, where every now and then you see various groups of elders dancing, playing music or exercising. This is definitely something I'd love to see more in another countries. Another form of senior entertainment was to put one's (grand)children for matrimonial sale - information about them (age, height, education, profession, sometimes a photo) was written on countless umbrellas set up in the park. Yes, such "tinder" had a sizable pool of users - whether with their consent, I don't know.

I have less fond memories of the squat toilets, and even less of something I had never encountered before, namely public toilets... without doors. With a single gutter going through all the stalls. However, this was only one exception, and the need was pressing, so... You gotta do what you gotta do. Good thing I was going for a number one only.

I would describe the people as rather loud and chaotic - both in speech and traffic (full of scooters). Loud, insistent calls to stores or pubs were quite common. Especially in cities or tourist attractions you could feel the VOLUME of people. On one occasion, while going to the Yellow Mountains visible above, we unwittingly planned it on a weekend... and we really felt it while standing in long queues and navigating the narrow trail. The scale of this country is just so different! Same with space - looking at the map, what would have seemed like a 2-minutes walk in Poland, in China ended up being 20.

I'll summarize the above photos with a short story about how we arrived at this establishment ass backwards.

Since google maps doesn't work in China, we used some alternative apps. Wanting to get to the destination shown above, the app told us to take a bus to a certain place and then walk a bit. Ok, sure. We got off at some rural area, and the GPS directs us into a mountain. We couldn't see any main route, but well, we went a trodden one. A narrow path leads us steeper and steeper, and then we went through a fence in which someone made a hole by force - huh! That didn't feel like a proper route, but we were too far away to go back.

It took us a a long time, but we finally climbed this mountain... which we then had to descended to the other side. After some time we suddenly encountered a hole in the ground, surrounded by large, stone slabs. The hole was so deep that it looked dangerous, if we accidentally fell in, it would probably be a serious issue. Fortunately, we managed to jump over it without any issue. After that, there was only one railing and a jump onto the sidewalk... we arrived.

Of course, this was not the right way to go, but well, WE TRIED. We entered the resort somewhat illegally, without tickets, which had to be bought at the entrance (where we left...). On this side there was also a normal road and normal buses - the facility which we intended to visit, as you can see in the photos, was not some shed in the middle of nowhere, but quite rich and popular destination.

Well, it was certainly a memorable last day in China!