Beijing Day 2

Big Frank cannot post any photos here - sorry. He'll be taking them, and then posting them when he gets back. Unfortunately, blogspot is not really accessible here except through fancy dodging techniques which involve using proxy servers to get around firewalls. Well, Big Frank got around the firewall, for text, but it appears there's an even higher wall for pictures.

Actually Big Frank did not get a chance to take any pictures today - he was working. Yeah, I know it's a bummer, but that's primarily what he's doing here. Nonetheless, a few impressions of Beijing:
(1) Air pollution is pretty bad, for someone from Spokane. Of course the Chinese that I talked to said that today was pretty good. It lets you see about 1/4 of a mile away and after that it's a white curtain - hey Big Frank is behind the White Curtain!
(2) The traffic is conjested. It can take 30 minutes to go 2 or 3 miles. Many pedestrians and bicylists completely ignore the traffic lights and pretty much walk across the road at their pleasure. Lots of loud honking.
(3) The food is terrific - great fried rice last night, and a terrific lunch today: (keep in mind that Big Frank is big on food, but not so good on remembering or describing the dishes - he's working on that) some kind of shrimp with a brown sauce, steamed baby greens, tofu in some kind of sauce, yellow rice - probably jasmine, right? It was good; he ate with two Chinese women - one currently living in Wisconsin, and the other in Australia. They both studied abroad, had American and Australian husbands, and thought the buffet (which had about 15 choices) to have too few kinds of food! And it is very cheap. Big Frank was telling one of the Chinese women (Bo)that he only paid 15 RMB (about $2.00) for his dinner last night. She told him that was overpriced and most would not pay more than $0.75.
(4) Everyone smokes over here and most places allow it inside. One Chinese guy that I talked said that's one reason why he lives here (he has a place in Australia also), because he can smoke in his office.

Big Frank is now going to get some exercise in the gym, and then go out for some more of that great Chinese cuisine. Big Frank apologizes for no photos, and promises to next include a poem on Day 3 to make up for the lack of photos.