Chinese food is basically Japanese food but a little more variety, and I realized that what I like a lot about Japanese food is actually more focused on in China (I like gyoza, ramen, fried rice, tonkatsu, etc). The prices are crazy good and I actually didn't feel sick after eating out like I thought I would. Even when I went to some shit hole in Dali and was sure I would get food poisoning, I didn't.

The train system in Japan is impressive, but China's is even better. The shinkasen will run
like 8 times a day (Japan's bullet train)... The chinese bullet trains, which are faster, run every 4 minutes. You can get from Shanghai to Beijing in about 4 hours and it costs like $30 bucks, whereas going from Tokyo to Osaka is about 2.5 hours and costs $150... which is basically as much as flying.

I'm sure there are a lot of shitty parts of China, but all the places I went to were insane. It's a cashless society and much more futuristic than anywhere I've been in Asia. I'm sure I'm going to be called a chink shill but Shanghai is lightyears ahead of Tokyo (not totally fair because Tokyo's infrastructure is older), Seoul is more comparable but still lagging behind.

Also, what's kind of crazy is that I think Chinese women are better looking that Japanese women. Oddly enough, Chinese women seem a little more elegant and proportional that Japanese women, who are on average shorter and squattier. I mean of course a lot of the Japanese celebrities are either straight up half white or heavily Jomon, but in terms of average people I genuinely do think Chinese girls are prettier, although I still prefer Japanese mannerisms. Chinese people are loud as shit and it's kind of annoying, but the younger generation seems better. My students were actually all super cool and polite, and kind of funny actually. (though they were probably from rich families).