Rules of Travel

Travel here is interesting. I try to ignore the actual trip itself by viewing the scenery around me. I am really impressed with how beautiful the highways have been landscaped. They are incredibly maintained with palm trees, shrubbery and other tropical plants. Every couple of miles someone is out clipping the hedges, planting new flowers, or weeding the grass by hand.

On the road however, here are the rules, no um guidelines, well -- let's call them "understandings" for driving in China.

1) Everyone is generally considerate, there is not really a concept of "road rage". Folks honk to let you know that they are there, not to flip you off.
2) There are no stop signs. At four way stops you go when you either
a) Feel like you can squeeze in
b) Feel like you have waited long enough
3) One way streets are an intention, not a rule. Drivers will go against traffic if they think that they can save time.
4) Incredible depth perception is a requirement. If you can slip a piece of paper between your car and the next at full speed on the highway, that is more than enough room to change lanes.
5) Lanes are "guidelines". If taking up two lanes helps you manuever around, so much the better.
6) Don't slow down for pedestrians. They should know better than to be in the road

With all of this, I have only seen one accident and our commute is 45 minutes to 1 hour one way.

Meals
We had lunch at the restaurant below the Northern Chinese Food restaurant. No one got my joke that it must be "southern" Chinese food. I will assume it just got lost in translation. We had another round of a bunch of stuff. I say stuff because I asked what the meat was in another dish and they 1) laughed, 2) said "Don't ask", 3) talked at length in Chinese, and then 4) said "Pork". Somehow I doubt it. We had to wash our utensils again and the Chinese with us made fun of it... I really doubt though that tepid tea would actually sterilize anything. I bought lunch for 9 people -- 176 RMB (or $22 or $2.50 per person) for 11 different dishes. The benefits in eating in a non expat area.

Dinner was Japanese. We sat at a Hibachi table -- and then they recommended the buffet (advertised at 148 RMB per person). We could order from the menu anything we wanted. We ordered: salmon sashimi (several times), tuna sashimi, grilled salmon, grilled eel, pork, dumplings, sabo (buckwheat noodles), lamb chops, kobe beef burgers, grilled pumpkin, grilled japanese potato, california rolls (bad -- they put mayo in it), green tea ice cream and fried bananas. We hit if off with the waitress and our price was reduced to 118 RMB ($15 US) per person on the promise that we would bring back our friends.

Sleep -- 5 hours and change