The thing about the water

They will tell you “when in China do not drink the water”.  I had been told this is not because the water is bad. It is because it has a different composition than our water, and will make us sick.  😷 This not entirely correct.

The water here cannot be consumed even by the Chinese people, so all water for drinking is filtered.  If you go to a restaurant and get water, ice, a margarita or even a snow cone – you can drink/eat it as it is made with purified water.  HOWEVER you cannot drink the water from the tap!

I share this with you as I was very concerned about being sick. I took a water bottle with me to every restaurant until I figured it out.  There are some places such as the airport that have drinking fountains with purified water but they are sparse.  However you can buy a bottle of water on every block.

You can buy bottled water very inexpensively.  The smaller bottle here is 500 ml for 2 Yuan (about 30 cents American) or the 5L bottle was 10 Yuan (about $1.45 American). They also have less expensive water but the Nongfu spring is my favorite.