anecdotal update

Three brief anecdotes:

Emergency services in the States (particularly California) always complain about the lack of respect afforded them by the public. Well, Beijing is an entirely different story: an ambulance with sirens wailing barely made it past our hotel as we crossed the street this morning, stuck behind a customary logjam of buses at their stops, taxis picking up passengers, and other motorists doing their best to get around them. I felt bad for whoever the ambulance was going to pick up.

But you can't blame other drivers entirely, for only moments later, the ambulance came whizzing up the street the other direction after hitting a U-turn down the way... all the yielding in the world can't help when the driver doesn't know where he's going.

At lunch, I managed to get my first vegetables since being here. I realized KFC serves sides of corn, so I went to supplement my all-grease temporary Chinese diet. Lacking the picture menus that were there just two days ago, a helpful Chinese woman offered to translate my order for those behind the counter. I began to wonder, however, when I was told I would still have to pay three yuan for my order whether or not I got the ice cream with it (?!?). My suspicions were confirmed when I was handed an empty cone. (After a little further explanation, I was able to get a hunk of corn on the cob...)

I've finally found a situation in which rain can be a positive (if not preferable) circumstance- it's raining here again today, which has several desirous effects:

lower temperature
lower humidity
less smoggy skies in coming days

Now, you are all quite aware how the monsoons of the Oregon rain forest have made me hate basically any type of precipitation, so please don't accuse me of hypocrisy. In Oregon, rain only leads to rain, rain, and more rain (and green, but that doesn't do me any good, either). Here, rain presents the only chance to glimpse the sun, and that's the most important goal anyway, eh?

For dinner, we're heading to a Russian restaurant! Been craving Russian for AGES.