Where I wash my hair for $1.50...

I really wanted to just post a picture of our national bird with the sentence "the eagle has landed in China." But since the eagle is now on a trip out of town exploring her first trip in the land of wontons and horn honking, I suppose I can actually share in life lately even with my maternal figure here.

The eagle has indeed been in town and so I had my first visitors to my humble government abode this week! Thank God for the chance to do some cleaning last week since I've managed to push things into spare nooks and crannies. We went exploring and hit up a lot of typical touristy spots to let them get a feel of the city, as well as eating some of the restaurants I've been meaning to try. My favorite from this weekend was a Taiwanese-Shanghainese spot called Jian'Guo 328 (literally it's address) with simple decore, strong food, and light cooking (no MSG or smoking...I wasn't sure if they meant smoking the food or for me to smoke.)

The eagle of course is an independent bird and also went on her own adventures when I was at work, including paying $10USD for a cab ride that would have been $3 tops. It's funny how different little things like that can be. She's so used to DC cab prices that the idea of being ripped off didn't really occur to her. It works the other way as well. She wanted to get her hair trimmed and turned down all my offers of taking her to a nice department store salon. Determined to get that "local feel", she led us out on an exploration trip that resulted in us finding a Chinese-speaking only salon a few blocks behind my housing. With a membership card (you pay 1000rmb upfront and nearly all services become half off) you can get a shampoo wash and style for 24rmb or just a shampoo and basic blow dry for 10rmb. TEN RMB. That's about a buck fiddy for when I'm so #firstworldproblems that I can't even raise my arms and lather my own hair. Ridiculous.

Damn straight, loch ness.

My little cousin is studying Chinese up north in Beijing so with APEC being in town (and getting them all out of class), she decided to take the high speed train down. It was fun to see her reaction to the differences between our cities- Beijing is a much more politically centered city with old history and more adherence to customs and traditions. Further down though, we're all about fashion, money, change, and a huge expat community with people from all over the world. There's definitely great variety in China, even in how the large cities can be perceived. (And air quality as well! With the government's regulations during and pre-APEC, their air quality was significantly better than usual. Ours has been up and down a lot lately, with this morning being in the mid 200's. Not fun to walk to work in thick yellow air.

Fresh fruit onna stick

Fish hot pot with ayce veggies

Fresh skewers?  

He's hand cutting out a picture for a newlywed couple.

Scarves scarves scarves

Giant fried squid and korean rice cake

Wonton wrapping. 

The results?

Qipu...land of wholesale clothing madness

Nuff said.

Imitated but not duplicated, the knock off In & Out called CaliBurger. 

In a bit of personal TMI, this job kills my feet! For example, consulate had an after hours event which I volunteered to help with. What was supposed to be 4 hours ended up closer to 6, on top of an almost regular working day. I didn't mind the work; it's always fascinating to see how more experienced people like our CG work a room, take mental notes, and just are able to be so open and responsive and yet warm. Our CG by the way, has an exemplary memory- he can name everyone in our all-hands meeting and regularly will greet us by name and ask how we are doing. It's a really nice trait to hear someone who is so busy be able to call you out in crowd. Nonetheless, the guest escorting and room circulating and food checking can get tiring when people stay past the designated end time. Add to the fact that I didn't choose the wisest of shoe choices (always flats, always) and my feet are aching!

Ugh, I hurt just looking at this.

We had made sure the CG was in his shiny black car before B and I grabbed a taxi off a nearby intersection and made it back home to our housing. After I waved farewell and waddled my way up the stairs to the lobby, I was just thinking if it was too shameless for a diplomat to walk barefeet in carpeted hallways when who comes walking out of the elevator next to me....the CG! Failing as usual in social interactions, the only thing I managed to blurt out was "You don't live here." Probably not the best of general impressions. Turns out he was just picking up some things up for a trip the next day, though and he politely refrained from pointing out my verbal vomit. (What a kind man...)

Sometimes I think he's my spirit animal...

A costco sampling of what's on my plate this week: redesigning and organizing new signs and banners for the waiting room, getting our lobby phone cubbies labeled and the keys tagged, figuring out who happened to our brand new K-cup machine and why is it no longer dispensing the drink of overtimers everywhere to us, giving a speech at a local international school, helping the holiday party committee (which we oranize as a thank you gift for the LES (locally employed staff)), studying Chinese to try and get off my language probation, geting through my huge number of clearances and cases sitting in my bin, and of course keeping in touch with all the cool and great people in my life back home.

But for right now, I'm just going to go soak my feet. By the way, congrats to Jonny Lee Miller on his brand spanken' new U.S. Citizenship. I totally think this is how everyone should get sworn in at USCIS.

Sherlock's Murican now.