city life

I realized I talked a lot about Beijing earlier, but Shenyang is a whole new world. First it is a huge city, huge. There a tall, old buildings everywhere. many apartment buildings that are very run down. Laundry hanging out of the balconies, next to the piles of lettuce. There is very little green. occasionally a street will have a a median with some grass. There are a few trees scattered here and there. There are also some construction sites, but very little construction stuff. I have seen one dump truck. Mostly men with shovels.

On to the traffic. How to even begin here! There are cars, bikes, mopeds, taxis, buses. The sidewalks are also used for passing lanes and parking so you never know, as a pedestrian, when a car is going to come rushing up behind you as you window shop. The bikes and mopeds pay no mind to pedestrians either. Most people ride two to a bike or the bike has a huge platform that carries who knows what (eggs, lettuce, boxes, building material, I even saw a full size crib!) piled so high I am not sure how the biker sees what is in front of them. There is constant honking. No one uses blinkers, but drivers manage to cross 6 lanes of traffic and then pull a U Turn in rush hour traffic. People do not obey traffic signals or pay attention to other cars, bikes or pedestrians. The lanes are clearly marked, but meaningless.

The people stare, mostly at adoptive families, but I still get a few long looks. A group of girls were pointing and laughing yesterday. Sometimes I am glad I can not speak the language. The people spit, well, spit is a kind word, the hack up a big old loogy with a dramatic noise and then spit. They blow their nose on the street, they cough with out covering their mouth and I even saw one guy pee on the side of a building. It is a wonder to me there is not better hygiene with how many people are here and how close they live. Many people, especially older people, wear masks. Many younger people walk arm in arm.

There is a big shopping district by our hotel. There are about 12-15 department stores with about 8-10 floors. They are all very expensive with many similar name brands, Guess, Esprit, DKNY, Coach, Swatch, Este Lauder, etc. The interesting thing is all the clothes have a very different style. Very unique and even the biggest sizes do not even come close to fitting me. Trust me I tried. So instead I have gotten a few scarves, a ring... In the city there are also a few buildings that surprised me. One avon store, smaller. Then a huge Mary Kay sky scraper and, of course, an Amway one too. I guess I will never be to far away from W. MI (did I tell you my heating unit in the room is Johnson control?)