Weird tidbits

I found out some very weird little things about China this past week. Thought I'd share them here.

So as I said before, there're LOTS of cars and bikes and all on the streets. Therefore traffic is always a nightmare in Shanghai and in Beijing. Beijing is apparently increasing about 1,000 new cars each day, and Shanghai about 10,000 each year. So someone came up with the brilliant idea of limiting the number of cars that can get on the road each day. Well the person in Beijing in charge of soothing the traffic problem clearly isn't as creative and straight forward as the person in Shanghai. They handed out notices and tickets for each privately owned cars in the city, telling them when it's ok and when it's not ok for them to the on the road in Beijing. Shanghai, on the other than, didn't bother with all that. That's just too much work! This is what they do in Shanghai for traffic problems. If your license plate is an even number, you get to drive your car on even days of the week. In other words, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. And you guessed it, odd licenseplate numbers entitles you to go out on odd days of the week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Sunday is free for all! How's about that?!

Second weird thing is that post offices are apparently not making enough money. Well, that in itself isn't all that weird. The weird part is how they are solving that problem. The one post office I visited had completely turned itself over to selling cellphones! In fact, it's not longer selling stamps! And apparently, to get rid of the access stamps in their inventory, the post office sells stamps at a discount from it's printed value. And in the mean time, they are almost doubling prices for sending posts. Hmm... explain that one to me! So my mom bought some stamps for xmas cards that are face-valued 2.60 yuan for 0.60 yuan! What a bargain! Maybe the U.S. postal service should consider the same thing. :)

Third weird thing of the day. You can get away with anything, as long as you know the right person. We had to get a physical for Jared for entering kindergarten here. And of course they couldn't just have a regular physical, they had to check his blood and urine. Hmm... tell a 2-yr-old to pee in a cup failed. Miserablly. So my mom's cousin (the principal of the kindergarten Jared's going to) called the nurse in her school, whom apparently knows the doctor that is in charge of the physicals at the hospital where the physical was done. And whoala, no peeing in the cup is no longer a problem. The child gets to go to school without them knowing something might be wrong with him from his peeing in a cup. It's like magic. Know the right person and your problems will go away. So who do I have to know to win the lottery???

Now I'm done. about to fall asleep at the keyboard. I'm off to bed. Wish me luck on the boys' second day of school. More on that later.