It's Still Humid and Smoggy Here

Back at the same internet cafe as yesterday. Derek showed us a cheaper one last night, but when we went this morning they wouldn't let us in without our passports, which is kind of odd. Anyway, let's be honest: the other place is only 1 yuan cheaper per hour - about 12 cents. I'm not too worried.

After our last post, we walked around the surrounding blocks and found a little market street swarming with people shopping for the day's groceries. We bought some steamed buns (baozi) stuffed with eggplant (qiezi) that were good, if a little strange. Then we started a trek to Wangfujing, a famous shopping street crammed with name brand stores and - of course - people. (One Beijing constant: people. Everywhere.) We remembered eating at a snack street there on our last visit, and we wanted to try to find it again. We had some success; we ended up at a snack street, but I'm not sure it was the one I remembered.

The subway was crowded, of course. I got my laugh of the day when a young boy and his grandparents got on a stop after we did, and as the grandma tried to sit down with the boy next to me, which were the only available seats, he cowered in fear and hid his face in his grandmother's chest. The whole ride she nagged him, "Say so-and-so to her!" and he'd reply, "No, grandma, we didn't learn that in school!" Eventually he introduced myself and shook his hand. It was pretty cute.

There are an awful lot of foreigners in Beijing these days; Derek says there have been more and more arriving, I imagine in anticipation of the Olympics. The strange thing is that they are so rude to each other! Nobody will so much as make eye contact, and they shove each other a little harder than usual on the subway.

The jet lag is catching up to us. After our excursion to Wangfujing, we laid down on the couches to rest and, to our surprise, woke up several hours later when Derek got hungry for dinner. We ate at a dumpling (jiaozi) restaurant, which was nice - so nice, in fact, that we may head over there for lunch.

Apologies that my post isn't as eloquent as Tom's last one - I'm feeling a little bit exhausted. Having to work hard to do basic tasks wears on me. That said, we're both well fed and happy, and we haven't had any trouble with the food yet (knock on wood).

P.S. We were getting worried because we hadn't heard from the woman connecting us with jobs here in a few weeks. The thought crossed my mind more than once that we were scammed - though thank goodness they didn't get my passport from me. Anyway, Tom just got an email from the middlewoman connection saying that she had just talked to our connection and that she is setting us up with a tour soon. So maybe we will be employed after all.