Prairie Night

I walked a mile or so in a new direction this afternoon and found a shopping mall with a Pappa John's Pizza, KFC, McD (called "maidonlao" here), and a bagguette bakery. It also had a supermarket where I find new varieties of vegie "ham" and dried tofu. One variety I like is jerky-like pieces of tofu soaked in chili sauce. I eat it right out of the bag.

In the evening I took a taxi on the 20-minute ride downtown (US$3.50) and attended a symphony orchestra performance at the city's opera house. They performed traditional Chinese songs on western instruments (violins, etc) and it was great. Song titles included (my translation) "prairie night", "I miss my family", "I'm a goat", and everyone's favorite, "I want to return to my mother's house".

Walking may not sound like much of an adventure but crossing the street definitely is. Green walk lights here mean "walk if you dare" because cars don't stop for pedestrians - many don't even stop for red lights. The key is to look in all directions, take nothing for granted, and walk at a steady pace - preferably in the middle of a lot of local people. If you stop and start it's hard for the motorcyclists and cars that zoom through red lights to judge your trajectory.