Chinese holidays...

This week is a week "off" in China coz of October 1st- which is their sort of independence day. I said "off" coz obviously a lot of them still work. They have a system - each worker gets his days off at another time- and this way places and work are not totally shut down for a whole week. There's not even one day in the year, not even one- where all the businesses are closed. Not even one day that all the people are off work. Not even one day where its totally quiet... And even so- on the holiday weeks- all the flights are booked, all the hotels are booked, all the trains are full, all the places are full of people. Two days ago we decided that we should do something - see a bit of Shanghai. So we went to the other side of the river, to the new area, to see the TV tower and maybe a museum. As soon as we got out of the subway- we realized that its pouring down cats and dogs... The rain just didn't stop. It wasn't really cold- just so so so wet. There were huge puddles everywhere, and we got wet to our bones. So I offered that we do get in the tower- just not all the way up- only to the Shanghai History Museum (which I really liked last time I was there) - it's on the bottom floor of the tower. We bought tickets and ran in to the building. We were soaked. Then we realized that we couldn't have made a better decision- the line to the tower was looooooooooooooooooong and there was no line to the museum!!! We passed all the people going to the tower, felt like VIP's not having to stand in line... We were there for about 2 hours, got dry while walking in the museum, and then left. It didn't rain anymore... The amount of people, especially Chinese tourists everywhere was amazing. They were everywhere. And it was really easy to spot who's from a city and who's from the smaller towns: first according to their clothes, second according to the taking pictures everywhere (even on the subway, and in a restaurant) and of course according to their loudness, to their saying hello to and having a conversation with the manikins in the museum (yes- even adults did that) and to the fact that they were generally astonished by the miracle called "the subway system". For example- when I went to uni a few days ago I saw one old woman standing in front of the machines that sell tickets to the subway. She was standing there for about 15 minutes trying to figure out how to work the thing. It has instructions both in Chinese and English by the way- it really couldn't be easier to use. When she finally decided what kind of a ticket she wants and clicked the right buttons on the screen (with the help of a kind man) - she took her coins and tried to put them in the bills entrance. she's probably never seen one of these things in her life I guess... Ha ha ha... Thats it for today, more stories about the aliens called "the Chinese people" next time.