Saturday, December 23, 2006

My First Impressions of China

So for this winter break as some of you may or may not know, I decided to come with my gf Yuxuan to China. Her parents live in a city called Wuhan which I would guess to be about 600 km west southwest of Shanghai. If there is any one word I would use to describe the city, it is populated. It's hard to believe that this many people can live in one city in such crowded environments. I've been told there are almost as much as 8 million people in this city. But even though the city is crowded, it is also vast. You can be in a bus in what I consider a downtown area, and after heading a straight line for an hour, it seems as if you never went anywhere because you are still in what appears to be a downtown area. This city is incredibly large and populated equally so.

Beijing seemed the same way when going from the airport to the train station. We started off in a downtown environment, and after 1 hour of being in a car, we were still in a downtown environment. It was another enormous city. And inside the train station, never had I seen so many people except maybe in some sort of sports stadium back home.

So those were my first impressions of China. The size of the population just amazed me and was definitely the first thing that came to my attention. Obviously there are other things as well that I have noticed and would like to write about. Some good and some bad. I will talk about those at a later time. Hope everyone back in the US is safe, healthy, and enjoying themselves.

-APC