2009-05-13 Drying in Beijing

Probably the green effort that government put in is effective, the sky is blue today too :) But still, you can hardly see clouds.

On my forth day here in Beijing, my lip will start to 'crack', my eyes started to feel very tired because of dryness even in morning. To proof how dry it is, please see picture below:

I pick this leaf around 9am on the street, then I just leave it on my office desk. Around 4pm, I was surprised it became so dry, from a flat normal leaf! Imagine if I am not drinking water, how would I be? A dry mei kuan (chuckle), which is more dry than salted fish :p

Luckily I found out a way to protect my eyes, put some water near my eye with my eyes closed, every time I go restroom. It seems to be working, my eyes felt much better since then.

We usually take lunch in cafeteria with colleague here, it cost RMB 12 for buffet style lunch, RMB 10 for noodle or a plate of rice with meat. From these few days observation, some Chinese like to take a lot of food, although they can't finish it. It is so wasteful :( Oh by the way, my meal portion increased, but not weight. This is most probably because I need to walk a lot here. A lot of destination are within walking distance, which means 10 - 20 min walk :)

We took bus from office to go back to apartment. The public transport system is pretty well organize. The bus fare using touch card (like Touch n go card) cost only RMB 40 cents sometimes :O But the bus suspension probably is not too good, when we sit at the back seat, we sometimes 'bounced' although the road surface is not too bumpy. At the back of each bus seat, there will be some riddles, IQ question, information or etc, which is quite interesting to spend the time on the bus :)

On our way back, saw some senior citizens are doing line dance outside of a complex. There were easily more than 100 of senior citizen enjoying the dance.

Before finishing up this post, almost forgot to mention the 柳絮. I am not sure what is it called in English. It is white in color, similar to dandelion, very light and you can find it in the air almost everywhere on the street.

You might wondering, where are the dinner photo? :) I did not have my camera during dinner time. I will update the picture after I get those from SH :)

[Updated on May 16 with photo] 饺子城 Dumpling City


From left to right:
1) Fried vegetable - Pang Pang will like the egg but I like the vege :D
2) Meat ball winter melon soup - The soup was surprisingly very tasty, especially to me as a Cantonese.
3) Dumpling - The dumpling is okay, but the ingredient that surprised my taste bud was the vinegar, with light alcoholic taste, which is unique :)