Hot Dogs!

Out in front of my apartment complex there's a strip of about five small businesses tucked away underneath the apartment buildings facing the street. There's an herbal store, a dumpling restaurant, and a few other knickknack shops. In the middle of it all is rather odd looking hot dog shop called "No More Bunz." What the god damn does that mean? I have no idea, so for quite a while I was stubborn and only eating Chinese food.

Finally, after two months or so contemplating this place I decided to give it a go (as the Brits would say). The fine little shop changed my life. In fact, the dogs weren't that expensive when it really came down to it and they're loaded with a choice of condiments.

They offer a standard dog (you know what this is) , Italian (Italian sausage), and German (Brat!). At this point, it's hard for me not to stop there after work. Fortunately they close really early.

Mao Zedong's wings

A little while back Luhan's father asked me if I liked airplanes. We were eating dinner and I had trouble deciding whether I did like airplanes or not. I guess airplanes are OK, so I said yes. Boy was he excited. Apparently he had been trying to get someone to go with him to this aviation museum a bit out of town. The next morning we were off.

We drove out with him and Luhan's mother to this old somewhat neglected museum. It was interesting because it was like someone decided to build it, perhaps in the 80's and then do absolutely nothing to maintain it.

There were two main sections. One was a gigantic space inside of a mountain. Lined up in rows were mainly dusty replications of all sorts of aircraft dating back to the Wright brothers. But the real gems lie out in an overgrown field amidst at least 25 real airplanes. Here I'm talking about Mao Zedong's personal fleet. The picture of me on the couch was taken inside one of his planes. Also, you can see Luhan on the stairs of the same plane. I wonder what Mao would think if he knew I was lounging on his couch? I'll ask the preserved man when I make it out to visit him.

I also found a plane with a description beside it explaining that it shot down an American plane. That gave me a strange sort of feeling and I kicked it. Just kidding.

I'm still not sure how I feel about airplanes, but it sure was cloudy that day.

Mad man in neighborhood

So, this morning I awoke to find this posted to the apartment building beside ours. At first I thought it was an ad of some sort, but now that I'm fluent in Mandarin I read the text below. Ok, Luhan read the text. Apparently, this man (image I'm assuming came from a security camera) has robbed a few people at knifepoint. More specifically, his victims have all been foreigners.

I really didn't think this kind of nonsense happened in Beijing, but of course, I'm nieve. His attacks actually happened a few subway stops away from us, which is pretty far to be posting signs in our neighborhood, but I guess the community gets pretty fired up when someone is at large.

The sign warns that the victim should hand over his loot as the man has already stabbed a russian refusing give in.

As you can see, this is about as exciting as it gets these days. I'm working a ton and ready for a break. Luhan will be in NYC, Florida and San Francisco over the next week mainly to attend a wedding, but sounds more to me like a vacation.