I’ve put together a pretty extensive overview of my month in China and I hope you enjoy all the fun stats, budget breakdowns, and Chinese quirks/anecdotes.

FUN STATS

BUDGET

My original goal for China was to average $35/day and while I had people telling me to up that to $40-45/day I still managed to keep with the original plan.

Yet I honestly never felt like I was missing out or skimping on anything.

I did the things that interested me, went where I wanted to go, and ate what looked delicious.

The last week in China was pretty relaxed though and that helped to keep the overall cost of things down.

I had gotten sick a few days before trekking Tiger Leaping Gorge. Add on the stress of then actually hiking 17 miles in one day and when we got back to Lijiang I didn’t want to do much of anything. So instead of going to the nearby town of Dali as I had originally planned I holed up in Lijiang with a few buddies from the trek for a couple of days and just relaxed.

By not moving on to Kunming until the day before my flight to Kuala Lumpur (and ultimately onto Kathmandu) I kept my travel costs down a bit and got the chance to chill out and have a bit of a rest. And boy did I need that.

CHINA’S QUIRKS

While I was traveling I kept a little list of all the fun/weird/downright disgusting quirks of China I witnessed though out my time there.

Picking nose/ears and flicking. Just no.

Spitting. So much spitting. Everywhere you go you hear people hocking up one hell of a loogie and spitting it wherever available. They actually have to have signs on the trains and buses telling people not to spit on the floor.

Pushing/no personal space. As someone with a pretty much permanent bubble around me this one was difficult to get over at first. Whether it be waiting in line or sitting on the train for 9 hours there is absolutely no sense of personal space and people are just constantly all up in your grill.

Having to put your used toilet paper in a basket next to the toilet. Can make for very smelly bathrooms and I still forget this occasionally. Not sure I’ll ever get used to it (which I’m strangely ok with).

So much smog and traffic. You read about how bad the smog is in China but you can’t really understand how bad until you get here. Though it makes you appreciate the rural areas and seeing a blue sky that much more.

Kids peeing/pooping in the street. Kids even have holes in the crotch area of their pants for easy access. My favorite one was in the Old Town in Lijiang watching a mother spread out a sheet of plastic on the ground and hold her kid up in the air while he took a deuce. She then wrapped up the plastic and threw the evidence in the garbage. At least she cleaned up afterwards?

Horribly slow and spotty internet. It’s like living in the dark ages and drives me up a wall sometimes. It’s probably good for me but when I’m having a quiet night in and want to catch up on my TV shows from back home it’s like pulling teeth every single time.

Chinese government blocks the most random internet pages. Facebook I suppose I get…Yahoo Weather not so much.

X-ray machines at the entrance to everything. I can’t even tell you the number of times I’ve had to put my bags through an x-ray machine while in China. At the museum, every time you take the subway, every train, every park, everywhere there are lots of people. Makes me feel somewhat safer I suppose.

No rules on the road. Well there are rules it’s just that no one follows them.

Crazy drivers. On that same note drivers (especially bus drivers) are out of their ever lovin’ minds. Sometimes it’s best to just put on your seatbelt and not look.

Horns. They also love their horns and use them at every opportunity. Makes trying to sleep on a long distance bus almost impossible.

Strange musical choices. I found a truck in Xi’an who, instead of having a normal beeping sound as a ‘backing up’ warning, played It’s a Small World After All. Stuck in my head for days. Then the plane from Chengdu to Lijiang played Christmas music the whole flight. It’s October people!

Midriffs. Guys here, especially those with huge bellies, are huge fans of pulling up their shirts into a midriff style when it’s hot out. Very sexy.

Fried food and oil. It’s everywhere and used on everything. Sometimes you get food that is actually swimming in oil. I finally caved one day in Chengdu and found an expat focused grocery store and bought a crap load of nuts, health drinks, and energy bars. My stomach (and my sanity) needed a break from all the deep fried oil fest.

Corn on the cob. They love this stuff. You can buy it on almost every street corner it seems.

Plastic food bags. The first time I bought food from the street they threw it into a small, thin plastic bag for me and sent me on my way. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. I got used to it of course but just know if you buy food off the street here they’ll just throw it straight into a clear plastic bag for you to eat it out of on the go.

Girlfriend/boyfriend interactions. Absolutely cracks me up. The guys here are their girlfriend’s bitch. They hold all their bags and basically do whatever is asked of them. My favorite was getting onto the overnight train from Xi’an to Chengdu and watching a young girl immediately sit down on the bed while her boyfriend struggled with the 5 or 6 pieces of luggage they had. The girl then proceeded to yell at him the whole time and point emphatically where she wanted everything to go. She never even attempted to lift a finger.

Yelling. It seems to me like Chinese people are always yelling at each other. Either that or they just talk really loud and really fast using lots of hand gestures all time time.

Very helpful/nice. It may seem like I’m ragging on China with all the above mentioned anecdotes but for the most part people were very nice (save for a few nasty ones but you find those wherever you go). They helped me many times with directions when I had no idea where I was going; I had girls in my hostel in Xi’an constantly giving me free food; people were always helping me put my backpack up onto racks in trains because I’m vertically challenged; and a hostel owner not only went to the station to buy my train ticket for me but he gave me a ride on the back of his scooter at 630am to the bus station for free.

China is a very interesting and unique country. It definitely wasn’t an easy choice for my first solo stop on my trip but I think I managed alright. I met some amazing people throughout my travels in China and I know they made the experience that much more memorable.

Have you ever been to China? Noticed some of these funny quirks of the country? Have some to add?