Travel Notes - Haikus Through Colorado

Why the heck did I do it?  Why the heck do I do anything?  Because it's fun.  All my trip notes were posted on FB in haiku form.  I decided to collect them here for convenience.

I am going to 
Make all my Denver trip notes
Vacation haiku.

Airport people rude. 
TSA? A-OK day. 
Very early flight.

Today's flight theme should be:
Middle aged women go pee.
They all brush past me.

Stewardess must rest
The flight is not very full
N keeps magazines

So many plane snacks!
We're on the way to Denver
Do not have munchies

Marijuana ha.
If I had it could I say
Vituperously?

Prep for baggage claim
I have to remember this:
To stay baggage calm

Plane is on descent
Can't describe how excited
Let the fun begin!

Happy Birthday N
Hope you have a great weekend
Rocky Mountain "Huh"?

We have just landed
No head shop in the airport?
Denver, WTF?

The crisp mountain air.
At the passenger pickup
Is so refreshing!

Say hello to the
Devil horse with orange eyes.
Bids farewell to you.

Denver Biscuit Co
Biscuit Cinnamon Roll yum
Denver is awesome

Only 10 a.m.
Two sandwiches already.
Delicious Denver.

Haha too much food.
I will need to run it off.
Time for food coma?

Amphitheatre:
Red Rocks. Am I out of shape?
Or just short of breath?


Uh oh where's Nicole. 
I need to get a picture. 
Oh shit - a selfie!

Girl walking up the
Red Rocks trail barefoot. "Good for
You, little hippie."

Thirsty Lion closed.
They open next Tuesday ... But...
Today lunch is free...


From the thirsty lion, 
16th St Market - training 
Day. We sure lucked out.

Got back in the car. 
Time on car is 4:20.
Ironic, ain't it?

Just chill and get Thai.
After long, wonderful day.
Now is time for sleep.

If you do not know,
And an argument will blow,
Google that shit, yo.

Nikki is sleeping
But I am not tired enough.
She is so adorbs.

Oh how I love a
Raucous round of Cards Against
Humanity. Good times.

Just so you all know.
Nicole's birthday tomorrow.
In case she forgets.

BeauJo's Pizza place
Has pizza with Mountain crust.
Dip that in honey.


This is mountain crust. 
Chicken cordon bleu pizza. 
First bite amazing!

A beautiful day
In a tiny mountain town.
With beautiful girls.

Seem to be fighting
Constant battery issues.
Jeez. Seriously.


Kourtnie likes pictures.
So we took us a selfie.
While we were waiting.

Off to see Boulder.
"A bunch of dirty hippies."
I can't wait to see.

Looking forward to
Seeing Odd 13 Brewing 
Out in Lafayette.

I got my first whiff
Of earthy B.O. just now
In downtown Boulder.

Pearl St. In Boulder.
Far more girls wearing bras than
I had expected.

50/50 is
Male to female ratio.
Odds good but goods odd.

Black IPA yum
At Odd 13 Brewing Co.
In Lafayette yeah.


Yep, that's filet mignon. 
With bleu cheese on crostini. 
Fucking amazeballs.

Ok, so anyone
Want to buy our roomy house?
Moving to Denver....

Okay I get it.
Howl at the Moon not for dudes 
Just the drunk bridesmaids.


Oh dear God I'm old.
Those are not dresses ladies.
They're hotdog casings!

Oh the things you see
Muffin tops on strapless dress.
Oh no! Can't unsee!


Somehow I managed
To be part of someone's night.
Farewell, Felicia?

Apparently I won't
"Live dat shit down" says Nicole.
Goddamn weirdo, yeah.

Oh it's my liver 
Had enough? It says to me.
Fucking pansy-ass.

Mmm, smell that bacon.
Kevin Anderson cooking.
Om nom nom nom nom.

Hey Nicole Davis!
Just got one thing to ask you.
Did you sleep alright?

Tommyknockers pub.
Tundrabeary summer ale.
Simply refreshing.


Notice something odd? 
Weird place for power outlet. 
It's GFCI...

Some fine Grecian food.
Final dinner of the trip.
Yummy baklava.

Two minutes twenty
Seconds is too long for a
Wall sit. My poor thighs!

This somehow, somehow,

Reminds me of our weekend.
Too much food and drink?

Haiku, like Twitter,

Creates beauty solely from 
Brute force brevity.

Kevin Anderson

Is not here this morning. Please
Leave a message. Beeeeeeep!

Relaxing morning.

Some internets and email.
Back to reality...

Tattered Cover Books - 
A reminder of how I 
Don't read anymore.


I found a book that 
I might like, but I do not 
Feel that suburban.

Horrible person:
Cards Against Humanity...
This shit writes itself...

Unisex bathrooms.
What an awesome idea
For single seaters.

What's pane Bianco?
Really? For shame on Udi's!
We call it white bread.

Last Comic Standing 
Winner Josh Blue also ate
Lunch here at Udi's.

Our flight is delayed.
Probably the Midwest storms.
Don't wait up for us.

Alley sale behind
Says they sell "Furn tools" there. Might 
As well say "Turn fools."

At Denver Airport
Chilling with my lovely wife.
Ahhhh, what a great trip.

Dyson Airblade fine
But XLerator is
Better at drying.

In Denver Airport
You can now come in for a
Bikini waxing.

Wheels down Chicago.
Roughest descent in ever.
Hooray almost home!

Finally at home.
The haiku has to end now.
Bet you are relieved...

Reminiscing About China

So that's basically China.  I'm amazed that I had so much to write.  I'm amazed that there are still little stories I didn't tell.  But now that it's over, here's a little table of contents of the adventures, which turned into a 18 part series:

• The Frame Story
• Engrish in China
• Eating in China
• Spitting in China
• Drinking in China
• Shopping in China - Part 1 - Bus Shop
• Shopping in China - Part 2 - Tour Guide Shopping
• Shopping in China - Part 3 - The Mosquitoes
• Shopping in China - Part 4 - The Wangfujing Marketplace
• Shopping in China - Part 5 - The Suzhou Market
• Shopping in China - Part 6 - Chinatown in China
• Shopping in China - Part 7 - The Black Market
• Shopping in China - Part 8 - What We Bought
• Getting Around in China
• Pooping in China
• Massage in China
• Tourism and Sights in China
• Entertainment in China

I sure hope you all liked them.  If there's anything you think I missed and you think I should recount, let me know, and I'll be sure to blog it.  Also, if you want to see some beautiful photos from another denizen of Bus B, check out Ela's Pictures.

I was told to have a look at the TV series, "An Idiot Abroad."  In this show, Ricky Gervais sends an average Joe, named Karl Pilkington, around the world with the idea of sending him to exotic locales and gauging his reaction.

The very first episode, Karl is sent to China.  They do a great job of showing the culture from a western point of view.  And they're spot on.  I recommend that if you get a chance, you watch it too.  It's on Netflix, and is a great visualization of what I talked about here.

Entertainment in China

Ok, so one other thing we did while we were there is take in a couple shows.  And I was so excited, too.  I mean, this is the land of the super-flexible and talented artists of the Shanghai Circus.  The land of kung fu.

I mean, we were in for some real treats, right?

I didn't mention this during the post on the bus shopping, but one of the things our tour guide told us was that the Chinese government puts its best face forward to the world, selling the finest products that they make on the world market, and keeping the B grade stuff for the Chinese people.

I actually think this applies to the entertainment as well.  As entertained as I am by the Chinese performers I've seen in the states, I wasn't that impressed by the shows we saw.  Permit me to explain.

The first production we went to was the Kung Fu Panda show.  It was at a school for Kung Fu, and I think we were kind of watching their equivalent to a recital.  It wasn't typical recital bad, but it was super cheesy, and many of the performers were kids that were clearly getting better at their craft.  The story had something to do with Mr. Panda doing Kung Fu and trying to get up all in Mrs. Panda's fur. Or something.

It's so funny.  I didn't feel like finding out the name of the place where the Kung Fu Panda show was, but I realized I had a picture.  So yeah.  That place.

This sign showed the English translation of what was going on.  It was as Engrish as the rest of the signs in Beijing.

Well, that was Beijing's show.  On our last night, we got to go to a circus in Shanghai.  Having seen the Shanghai Circus at the Paramount a couple times, I was pretty excited.  I like that kind of Cirque du Soleil stuff.

Except again, I think the export was better.  The feller who was juggling the large vases kept dropping them, and more than once we caught other mistakes by the performers.  If it had been the first show of that type I'd seen, long before Cirque du Soleil, I might have really enjoyed it.

It was exciting, though when they dd the motorcycles in the murder-sphere-of-death bit.  They did that really well.

Either way, I wasn't that impressed by the Chinese performances I'd seen.  Like a tiger mom, I expected Asian perfection, but I think we got b-grade performances.  Could have just been the tour too.  Dunno, but I was far more impressed by the historical sights, the shopping, and the food than I was the entertainment.

Tourism and Sights in China

China is a place with a deep and rich history.  No eight day tour was going to scratch the surface, but we did get some cultural flavor when we were there.  I've talked a lot about the culture through the products of China, but there were other sights, too.

For example, we did go to the Forbidden City in Beijing, and the Summer Palace.  We got some interesting pictures at each.  For example, at the Summer Palace was the giant rubber duck that's been traveling around the world.  It was there for National Day, which happens every October 1, and was just a week prior to our vacation, so I guess it was still there:

That's Brian, our tour guide.  And that duck is like three stories tall.  Biggest rubber duck I've ever seen.  And totally worth seeing.

Because National Day was so close, Tienanmen Square was also decked out with one of the biggest bouquets of flowers I've ever seen:

Girls, I know you like flowers, but this thing is also about three stories high, so you won't be getting this delivered through FTD.

Also note that this was taken in Tienanmen Square, across the street from the entrance to the Forbidden City.  Note how blue the sky is in the pictures.  Not a cloud, and no smog.  It was beautiful and fresh and wonderful.  I am well aware of how lucky we were to get such beautiful days in Beijing.

The gate to the Forbidden City.  You can see the giant portrait of Chairman Mao over the entrance.  Note the post in the foreground.  I't got a butt-ton of surveillance cameras on it.

Inside the Forbidden City.

You know, we also got to go to the Great Wall.  That was an adventure in itself.  Nicole had a little trouble making it up, and decided to wait for us on a landing instead of going on.  To be fair, it is an impressive structure that induces great amounts of vertigo due to its uneven steps and steep ascents.

It's interesting to note that on the Great Wall is a chain, and it appears to be a custom to bring a padlock and lock it to the chain.  These padlocks had initials and engravings and all kinds of stuff on them.  Kind of like a heavy metal version of the gum walls in San Francisco and Seattle.  See below

I was a little surprised not to see a skeleton dangling off a handcuff here.

That's right.  A Great Selfie.

We did go to a public park in Beijing.  There were thousands of people in this park, and there were lots of activities you could participate in.  We stopped and did Tai Chi with a group of people, and I played a little ball game with a local.  Some folks did something like Hacky Sack, while a group of girls played the cups song on the ground.  People were singing together en masse.  And there were lots of games of Go and Chinese Chess being played with a ton of people looking on at each game.

And there were groups like this every few feet along this bench for hundreds of feet.

And we visited the Temple of Heaven.  But this time, however, I was getting a bit exhausted at visiting cultural landmarks:

Temple of Heaven

For a bit of modern history, we visited the site of the Water Cube and the Birds Nest:

Mona wore that Birds Nest like a sombrero!

In Suzhou, we visited some beautiful gardens.  In one of these gardens, this woman was playing beautifully

Nicole is taking a picture. I'm taking a picture of her taking the picture.  That's fun.

One of the things we were taught about in Suzhou was about the round ports in the walls.  They are called Moon Gates, and once you see them in Chinese architecture, you'll see them everywhere.  That and the little lip at the door that you have to step over to get in to just about every old structure in China.  Those little lips apparently keep out evil, because evil can't hop.

In Hangzhou, we stopped off at a Buddhist temple for a few minutes.  We weren't there long, and they were closing down, but the place smelled heavily of incense.  Here's why. All those ashes in this giant cauldron are all incense sticks.  I imagine that this is about how Denver smells these days.

Getting lightheaded from the fumes.

What's funny is that after this, I don't really have many pictures of cultural stuff.  Granted, once we went to Shanghai, it wasn't so much about cultural activities, as Shanghai is a relatively western town.

But I don't think it was just that.  I think part of the reason I didn't take many pictures of scenery was that I was having too great a time with our tour group, who had by then all gelled into great friends.  As such, I think the cultural interest gave way to personal interest, and that was great by all of us.

Massage in China

One thing I heard about China before I went was that they have a massage culture.  That there's massage places all over the place, and that people often stop in for a massage after work, the way we might stop in to a bar for happy hour.

Nicole is a big fan of spa treatments and massage specifically, so I knew we'd have to sample.

On the first day there, our tour guide said that we could get a full hour massage treatment in our rooms for $30 (I think.  Boy, my memory of October is getting blurry; I'm glad I'm almost finished with my China series).  I jumped at the chance.

Nicole and I have done side-by-side massage a number of times.  It's fun, although being together doesn't usually matter much since massage is such an individual, internal, sensation/sensual thing.  For me, I'm always half or wholly asleep anyway.

Two ladies that spoke not a lick of English showed up at our hotel room that night.  They had us lie on the bed and got to work.  It was nice to do this in the hotel room.  I was so tired that I fell asleep, and don't remember a whole lot about that part of the experience experience.

After the horizontal massage, they had us each sit up at the edge of the bed.  They took what seemed to be like Walmart bags and filled them with hot water and herbs.  The water looked to be a brackish brown by the time they brought the full, steaming bag to us, and they had us put our feet in.  It was just herbed water, but in my very tired state it kinda looked like diarrhea and I was kinda grossed out.

That said, they tied the bags around our feet and let our feet soak, and it felt great, this making of the feet soup  After the soak, they massaged our feet, another very nice experience.  And that was about it.  A very nice, very cheap massage that we could just fall asleep after.

But that wasn't the only massage we got while in China.  When we got to Hangzhou, I asked the hotel about massage places.  They gave me directions to a place called Sha-na-na (yes, like the 70's tv show with Bowser, and no, you cannot make this stuff up).  It was only a couple blocks away, so after Nicole freshened up from the day, we walked over.

When we walked in, it was kinda like a restaurant.  They asked us, "Body or foot massage?" and followed that with "For two?" in a similar tone to what a hostess at a restaurant would use.  Yes for two.  Yes full body.  I think this massage was also $30, but for 90 minutes.

They escorted us to a private room.  It had three loungers in it separated by little end tables.  Nicole took the middle one, and I took the one to the right.  Someone came in and brought us tea.  Then they brought a little plate of of fruit for us to enjoy, including pieces of dragon fruit, which we really got to enjoy over the course of the trip.

The TV was on, tuned to a Chinese variety show that looked a cross between The Voice, America's Got Talent, and The Gong Show.  Lots of goofy silliness that we didn't understand, but at the same time kinda did.  Goofy humor is somewhat universal.

Then our massage artists came in, and they were very good looking.  A well-built hunky chunky monkey for Nicole, and a petite, cute tiny thing for me.  No kidding, this girl wasn't more than 90 pounds soaking wet.

And neither of them seemed to speak any English whatsoever.  Communication was limited to grunts and pantomime.  This was just fine with us.

Communication was bad enough that it took an embarrassingly long time to understand that my girl was telling me to get out of my chair and come sit on a stool so that she could work on my shoulders and back. I've got a long torso, so it's no surprise that once I was on the stool, this petite little thing had to get her own stool to stand on just to reach my shoulders.

No kidding, I felt like a hulking giant.

And once she was up there, she sure did a number on me.  This was deep tissue massage.  I'm pretty sure she massaged my lungs through my shoulders, given how hard she was pressing.  I pictured her behind me, lifting her entire body up after placing her elbows between my shoulders and neck, just to put the entire weight of her body on these two points.  Cirque style.

After the back rubs, he two massage artists brought in wooden buckets full of herbs and hot water.  That's right, we got to make the feet soup again!  And after the feet soup tenderized our feet meat, they started working on our feet.

My girl worked rather vigorously, rubbing the top of my foot pretty hard.  It hurt.  And after a while it hurt a lot.  I cringed and squirmed, but didn't say anything because I figured this was just me being a massage wuss. I mean, it's not like this little lady could cause any damage, right?

So we finished up our massage and headed out into the night, relaxed and feeling wonderful.  Feeling really happy to have experienced some of this massage culture.

Skip ahead to the next morning.  My foot kinda hurt when I woke up.  And then I had a look at it in the light of the bathroom.  This is how it looked:

That is not my natural feet color.  That is a colossal bruise.  

That is a massive bruise.  And it hurt.  For the whole rest of the trip.  The Chinese people have hard lives, in some ways, and we Americans have it cushy.  I don't know if a hardier foot would have stood up better to the massage, but I like to think this was a great reminder that my body is the way it is because we have it so good.

That was and will remain, however, the last foot massage I get in China.

Pooping in China

Oh boy, I'll bet you're thinking.  Today we get to talk about poo.  You can imagine we're probably going to get a bit... biological..., so if that kind of stuff offends you, please run to safety.  There may even be some ugly visual details in one of the pictures, so if you're eating chocolate pudding or some nutty fudge, please consider stopping before reading on.

But I'm not kidding, questions about the bathrooms are the most numerous I get asked about the trip to China.  More specifically, I get asked, "So... Did you use one of them squat toilets?"

First, I have to talk about what a squat toilet is.  I sure didn't know, and when I found out, I'm pretty sure I didn't think such a thing would exist in a modern society.  Almost like that would be the definition of "modern society" implicitly.

Restrooms in China are decidedly and deucedly different from the ones anywhere else I've ever been.  Sure, I've only ever been to North America and Europe before, but that's enough places to figure that the design of the toilet is pretty much a world standard.  This is not what you get in China, and it doesn't end in squat toilets.

Squat Toilets

Ok, so for those not in the know, a squat toilet is a little porcelain hole in the floor flush to the ground (oh, I don't even know if that pun was intended).  Beside the hole in the ground, along each side, are often obvious little non-skid pads on which to place your feet.  Anyone that would typically use a toilet in the sitting position would instead place a foot on each non-skid pad and then pop a squat, hovering over the hole and doing your business.  Or as women tend to know this move, "the rock concert".

And so I don't suspend the punch line too long - no, I didn't use one.  I didn't avoid them, per se.  Whenever the urge was there, the squat toilet was not my only option.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I feel pretty lucky about that.  I didn't have to worry about testing my squatting prowess.  Given that I wasn't in particularly great shape during the trip, I'm not sure my thighs would have held out.  I can only imagine the embarrassment of toppling over in the stall while trying to do your business, and the idea of rolling onto the floor in a Chinese bathroom makes me mentally retch a bit.

Also, I'm not sure if I got to talk with this about the folks that were with us that did have to squatpop.  If any of you are reading this, are you supposed to remove your pants?  I would guess not, since you'd have to remove your shoes to do that, and I can't imagine standing barefoot on those little pads or the bare stall floor.

But if you don't take off your pants, then aim becomes more important.  I would have worried about aim while butt-naked, but with clothing as potential splash damage, I would probably freak out.  I mean, I know that we're talking about point-blank range here, but visibility isn't very good, at least for a fella my size.

Yup.  That's it.  That's a toilet.  Way down there by the floor.  Oh, and the paper doesn't go down.  It goes in the little bin.  That probably made the whole experience even worse for me.

"Why is there a picture of a microscope on this stall door," I asked.  Oh wait, that's a little guy pooping.  Well, at least they got the number right...

Note, I think squatting is supposed to be better for you.  Something about the alignment of the rectum if I recall correctly.  In fact, check this article.  What nice little cartoon images!

Toilet Paper

I think it may have been Johnnie that first told me about this, but public toilets in China do not universally provide toilet paper.  This... I couldn't even imagine.  I mean, really, what if you're out and about with an emergency, and you have nothing.  What if no stranger can spare a square?  Or doesn't understand your language?  Squat down, do your biz, and walk away?

In China, it's apparently BYOTP.  No shit.  Literally.  BYOTP or no shit.  That or make sure you have plenty of oxi-clean with bleach at home.  Maybe this is why there are so many Chinese laundromats?

So it's not ubiquitous, no.  You do have to carry some in case of "emergencies", and it's not like you see a lot of Taco Bell restaurants there.  Maybe that's why.  To minimize emergencies...

Further, even if you do remember to bring your own paper, you can't flush it.  I don't know why exactly, but in each little stall there's a little garbage can where you dispose of the toxic discards.  See the picture above, and you'll see what I mean.

So I guess that's why the public toilets smelled so bad.

Now some bathrooms were monogenderous, but some had a little mixigenderous vestibule prior to branching off to two separate areas.  This little antechamber generally had a few sinks and in a rare occasion, a big roll of communal toilet paper that you could grab from.

This idea of a communal toilet paper seemed, in general, to beat the idea of not having to carry your own, but I got to thinking.  What if you grabbed too little?  I don't know about anyone else, but I never seem to know exactly how much I'm going to need in a given two-session.

The whole thing just made me paranoid.  Maybe that's why I didn't have to use the squatters.  Maybe the Duke was scared.  Maybe the Duke was hiding.

Toddlers Learning to Poop

This really doesn't fit anywhere else in any of the other stories, but since it is relevant to pooping, I'll relay it here.  In China, we saw a number of toddlers walking around in what looked to be assless chaps.  They were pants that had no crotch in them, and it's my understanding that they're used to toilet train kids. I think this is the same school of philosophy that Nicole once suggested we use for Gamble, where we let him wander around in the backyard naked until he let loose, so that we could help him identify that feeling.  If we did that, I don't recall.

Anyway, I didn't see them often, but Nicole spotted them a couple times.  I think she actually saw once where they were "in use", as in, the kid started to throw a deuce and mom scooped him up and held him over the bushes.  I know we saw a kid wearing them in the Suzhou marketplace too!

If you can't imagine what these look like I found this article.  Needless to say, when these pants were in use, I wasn't rushing over there with a camera...

Conclusions

Either way, I can say that while I'm generally pretty happy to be a man, with all its privileges, I was even happier while in China.  Standing to pee rules.

I am not sure if this was temporary storage or just a urinal "out of order" sign.

I was also pretty happy to be a tourist.  The hotels we stayed in on our tour were kinda fancy, and that means that they all had regular western toilets and regular western toilet paper rolls right there in the stall. And that made for a happy chappy.

Pooping in China is an adventure in itself.

Getting Around in China

So I know next to nothing about getting around in China.  Except maybe that it's terrifying, and I can't imagine getting around there any way other than what we did.

The Bus

We were on a tour.  We were bussed everywhere in relative luxury.  Well, I would have called it luxurious if there had been a toilet in the bus.  But bathrooms are almost an unknown luxury, and a topic of a future post to themselves.

We saw China through the windows of the bus.  Some stories are best told in pictures:

Yes, that's a beggar.  On the ground.  Face down.  With one leg.   This is not the only beggar in this condition we saw.

Out the window, we saw much interesting architecture.  And no real way to know what all of it was.

There was lots of space at the back of the bus.  Mona had room to stretch out.

The buses are huge, and the mirrors they use that stick out way into the front amused me.

Non-bus vehicles and traffic

The population density in China is ridiculous.  Over the top.  You can't imagine it if you've not seen it.  In Beijing, the roads are bumper to bumper traffic all over the city, pretty much all day long.  Buses, cars, all moving along at a decent pace, never as jammed as you'd think.  But it's very dense.

It's unclear whether it's because of the cost of cars, the density of traffic, the difficulty of navigation, a combination or something else entirely that drives it, but a lot of people drive scooters or bicycles instead of cars.  There were huge scooter drop off locations all over the place (I hesitate to call them parking lots, since they didn't look all that organized), and same with bicycles.  

Add to that the number of crazy vehicle hybrids.  We saw all manner of bicycle/scooter/auto hybrids. Franken-vehicles that boggled the mind.  Suffice it to say that traffic was incomprehensible to a westerner, and I'm sure glad we were on the bus. See some examples below:

Bicycle and scooter travel is so common they have their own light.  Note the green bike sign above the green pedestrian sign.

This feller's riding in the bike lane.  Many times the bike lane was fenced off as a separate lane.  Many times not.

And what the heck is this monstrous thing?  I'll tell you, it's no Elio... There were dozens of variations on the bike/car hybrid.

Ok, so this intersection makes no sense to me.  I could never drive here.  Or ride a bike.  Or pedestrian.

The Cab

Hoo boy, we only rode in one cab.  It was from the hotel to the Chinatown in Shanghai.  It was a white knuckler for sure, and being in the front seat made me so nervous.  The driver got us there safe, but I'm not hankering to get in another cab in China.  That stuff is scary from street level.

Me in the suicide seat with Kevin, Sarah, and Nicole in the back.  

Out the window of the cab.  Yes that's a bicycle under that enormous haul.  All those goofy pictures on the internet of people with stuff piled high on their vehicle or bike?  Yeah, those could all be taken in China.

Another bike just laden with stuff.

You'd think with all the craziness there would be accidents everywhere making it worse.  But there wasn't. We didn't really see any accidents that I recall.

Well, except that one.

While we were waiting to get back on our bus in Hangzhou, we were standing on the sidewalk when there was some commotion.  A scooter had slammed into a pedestrian crossing the street.  I didn't see it, but some in our group did, and it sounds like it was the pedestrian not paying attention.  Evenso, the scooter operator just nonchalantly sped away.

But that was it, and that wraps up our little discussion about Chinese traffic.  Next up, let's talk about toilets, people!