I beginning to get a bit sick of all these cities. It seems like abit of a shame, we are travelling riht through China, but only really etting to see one aspect of their culture. To be sure, there are unique aspects to every city we have visited - but when you get down to it, a city is a city, and these cities may as well have been in Europe. We've seen some pretyt quirky stuff - like an aerobics class on the corner of a busy intersection, in the middle of the night (Chengdu), but generally each city is just as traffic-congested, smoggy, dirty grey apartment-filled as the next! When we arrived in Kunming (in a cab whose driver was a young female with a license photo that was clearly a middle-aged man...hmmm...?) we were all quite excited that notonly could we see real live cloues, we could even glimpse a little bit of blue sky!!!

The dirtiness of these cities can get a bit depressing. I know its just a totally different culture, and it probably doesn't help coming from Japan, where they hand tissues out on the street for free, to here where it is very rare to find a toilet that actually has toilet paper. From a country where the toilet is heated and cleans and dries your bum (feel like a king lol) to stinky squat holes that more often than not have piss on the floor, doors that won't lock, and a turd waiting for you on the cracked procelein lol. On the train Lisa had to get up and move when the woman opposite her proceeded fom cleaning her ears, hocking up some loogies (and I have to say, the sound of someone clearing their throats and spitting out a huge glob of somthing slimy onto the pavement is not one I could ever get used to!!!), pickjing her nose a bit, slurping up her noodles, and the, to top it all off,start picking bits of food from her teeth and flicking it onto the floor.I have actually become that person who applies hand sanitizer religiously - and I never though I'd be like that!!! China makes me feel claustrophobic - too many people,. too many cars, too many buildings! It's all too much!!!