It's often said of China that personal space is a seldom-mentioned luxury that is rarely respected. If this turns out to be true (it has turned out to be true) then the little fat screaming chinese kid sitting next to me seemed hell bent on teaching me this the minute we entered chinese airspace.
He wore one of those airline sleeping masks which was so oversized it covered half of his fat pug face like a police visor, like a horrible space age miniature policeman. Having been nudged away by his dad, he'd sit upright and flop, like some sedated bonsai jabba the hut, onto my lap. He was literally on me for about 2 hours. I tried to push him away but started nudging too hard so gave up. Me and my sister tried to take a photo but had to stop.. the flash woke his dad up. I'll post my attempt when i can upload a photograph (joe green how do you do that?)
My sister lives in the Embassy district of Beijing which is really odd. The countries seem to model their Embassies on the architecture of their country. It's quite strange to be walking along with loads of Chinese people, and pass the Alhambra or some drab Portuguese villa. Funnily, the USA one is just absolutely massive. (By the way, one of the weirdest things about China is the number of Chinese people. There are so many! Like Chinatown but in a whole city. It wouldn't be weird but i'm a foot taller than all of them and they openly laugh at you..haha)
Today was fun - went to Sanlitun which is a shopping area with a really posh mall called the Village. Felt a bit weird on my own being laughed and pointed at by lots of people so went to Starbucks to have a coffee (say 'americano' in a chinese accent - so funny!). Felt guilty so did lots of walking around the markets. Then went for dinner with some current interns and people from the company which organises them. We had a 'hot pot'. It's like a pot of boiling really spicy soup which you cook things in yourself. Almost ate a chicken foot by accident.. The restaurant was nice, with big red lanterns like you'd imagine china to have.
xx thanks for reading
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