Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland

I'm in Beijing and HOLY COW is it cold here. And to think just a week ago it was so hot and humid that I wanted to take multiple showers a day. It's a good thing Sarah warned me to bring warm clothes. Not much to report on Beijing yet except that it's a completely different world than Hong Kong. Completely. I took a walk last night and quickly realilzed that all maps of the city grossly misrepresent the size of city blocks. This place is enormous, yet it all "fits" on a small pocket-size map. Nice. : And, I miss the English signs of HK. I have seen precious few subtitles in English...sigh...which means I might have to actually break out the Chinese phrasebook. We are so spoiled being English speakers.

I am pleased to report that last night on my walk I found a supermarket, once again, filled with products I did not recognize and on which couldn't read the labels... I walked up and down the aisles and you'll laugh at what I picked up (which includes all of the recognizable products I found, minus the Ritz crackers): Skippy peanut butter, Nestle Quick, a box of what I hope is orange juice, and some Oreos. :) Upon returning home, I discovered the Oreos are past their expiration date and stale. :( Funny, because it's not like there were only a few "left over" packages--in fact, there were probably hundreds (yes, I know, all "left over" from the summer). I also picked up some drinking water and out of the entire aisle full of plastic bottles, I chose the one with the Pepsi logo...just because in China you never know. Actually, even with the Pepsi logo it's still true that in China you never know (because even though I didn't think to check the Oreos, I had earlier entertained the thought of getting some milk so I could make hot chocoalte out of some dutch chocolate--this was before I found the Nestle Quick--but all of the milk expiration dates were past.) In all of this, I found it interesting to note the power of a logo and a few words of English. So that was my crash course in the importance and power of branding. In honor of all the pork curry and UFOs I've eaten in the past couple of weeks, I treated myself to a peanut butter sandwich and a mug of hot cocoa. I love China!