Support local. Buy your beer next door. [Day 5]

Beijing 101:
-There is concrete EVERYWHERE. Even the playgrounds are paved. And the ground surrounding trees on the side of the road? Filled with concrete.
-Children seem to be able to do whatever they please here. The other day, we walked past a Chinese couple teaching their toddler to take a dump on the sidewalk.
-The actual toilets have two buttons. I'm still not sure what the difference is, so I just press them both every time. Reporting back later when I find a way to bring this question up without seeming awkward.
-They eat a lot of cooked celery here (at least they serve it almost every day at the cafeteria here). Even as a main dish with something else like chicken. Maybe that's how they're so thin.
-If you give someone a thumbs up here, they just stare at you. That was dumb on my part.

Our door at the apartment is ridiculous. The other day, four of us got locked INSIDE the apartment and were almost late to work. Check out pictures on my Flickr. This thing is, no lie, security to the max.

I know I'm beginning to sound like a broken record, but I can't get over how cheap everything here is. I left my webcam in the States, so I had to buy one here. There's a Sears-type place in the bottom of my office building, so I bought one there for 30 kuai. That's like $4.40. And it works perfectly! I like transacting with people here, because we both get so happy when we understand what the other person is talking (or gesturing, or writing) about.

I was shamelessly thrilled to find out that I can watch my TV shows over here. Hulu doesn't seem to work, but casttv.com does. Thank God! I simply couldn’t go two months without knowing how New Directions did at Regionals on Glee!

I was feeling adventurous for dinner, so Annie and I stopped by this cart where a Chinese man and woman were making food. It seemed popular with the locals, so we stopped to look. The man was spinning what looked like a 2- or 3-foot wide hot plate, cracking eggs on it, and pressing it into a flat tortilla-like thing. The woman then folded the egg tortilla, smeared it with some brown sauce, put lettuce, onions, scallions, cilantro, some crunchy wafer-like thing, and some kind of thick hot sauce, and folded it up into a huge wrap. It was only 3 kuai (about $0.50) but it filled me up and was DELICIOUS. They point to the hot sauce here when they see an American to see if you want it, because it's REALLY hot. I had a Vanilla Coke because I can't find them in the States anymore and some ice cream. All that for about US$1. And it didn't make me sick… success!