Bejing Week 3 day??

I have pretty much thrown healthy eating to the wind. I know I could likely make better choices but again I have only seen one place that seems to do "salad" and it is on the complete other side of town. (Near the Yashow [Yaixu] Market.) So I take what I can.

Monday - I had breakfast - a bowl of cereal, a pear and a little bit of potatoes and eggs but the egg was cold and wasn't very appetizing. For lunch Melissa (co-worker - Chinese Aussie) and I had pizza at Pappa Johns. It was this little pan pizza with ham and pineapple. It came as a 'set' which came with tiny side salad and a soup. The salad was a bit of mixed greens and thousand island dressing. (No choices on dressing) The soup said it was pumpkin soup... it had some kind of fish in it that I did not like. Dinner - the other co-worker (Weiling) took me to a different "hot pot" place.  This one had the heating element in the table and they served it in a large stew pot. The broth had duck in it. (a whole duck mind you) First we tried the broth, then we tried the duck, then we pulled turnips up and ate those. Then they added more broth and then we cook other meats and veggies in the broth. Then at the end they did "hand pulled" noodles table side and tossed those in. It was all very good.

Tuesday - cereal and eggs and potatoes. I had a croissant also. Lunch - Melissa and I went to the building next door and had "Chinese" - we ordered lamb with pancakes (this was very much like the Peking duck - small pieces of meat, mixed with mu-shu sauce that you wrapped in thin rice wrappers with cucumber and a spicey root thing.) I really like this type of food. We also had a "noodle bowl" - it reminded me of flatter spaghetti with bolgnese sauce - it had meat and seasoning and spices - but not a lot of sauce. We also ordered a green leafy veggie with garlic. It was VERY good - I wish I would have known about this place sooner! In the afternoon as I was preparing for my class today - I ran out of tape - so I found one of the managers who was in my class the first week (who gave me the tape in the first place) so she could help me get more tape. She asked how I was doing and invited me to dinner. We ate at a "fusion" place called Post Script. We had sweet and sour pork and (I think it was) lamb again pancakes :) We also ordered an unusual squash that they had put ham, bread crumbs and parm cheese on the top. The squash had very large seeds and was only "ok." Then I couldn't resist - they had the largest selection of desserts I have ever seen - so I had their bread pudding that was pretty good.

Today - I had eggs and potatoes and decided to put ketchup on them :) Then I had a couple crackers with cheese and smoked meat and a pear. Lunch Weiling took me to a noodle place - rice noodles, chicken, mushrooms, some kind of pickled root, lettuce and peanuts in a clear broth. It was pretty good.

3 more days til I come home! WEEEE! Then back to eating right!

Additional things I have noticed in Beijing:
Yes getting on a bus or the subway removes your right to personal space.
On the side of town I am on - there are not many "foriegners" - so I still get stares like "what are you doing here?"
Many (and I mean MANY) men carry their woman's bag.
Many other men have "murses"
I have seen on several occasions the Chinese twin of my son Josh. Skinny jeans, shoes that match the clothes, hair done (only much... bigger), earphones in...
Chinese eat the same type of food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They don't appear to have "breakfast" foods. (Like our eggs/hashbrowns, oatmeal/cold cereal)