this is the companion piece to lonely shoes, lonely shirts.

the walk i take to work has become so much more interesting since basically moving across the street. i can almost see the hotel i was living in from the front of my building but it is very different where i am staying now. i am walking though a bunch of different apartment / living areas some of them nicer than others. It makes me feel like i am actually living in China as opposed to living on a really busy street. The area right by the train track is pretty decrepit, these pictures are the nice parts of the area. i will try to take more pictures but am struggling with the morality of turning someone's subsistence living into a memento if my trip here. also i am not sure how receptive people would be of me taking pictures of their homes.

went to walmart again last night (i know, i know hypocrite). i did find a different grocery store though were i can pick up everything else i need. walmart was pretty interesting, i think my being a caucasian in Beijing draws attention from the employees at the store. The first night i went, there was a guy who followed me around and looked at everything i was doing. i thought he was just trying to be helpful but because he did not know any English he was just following me around. i paid a little more attention last night and realized i had an escort everywhere i went in the store. Must be a rash of foreigners stealing humidifiers.

Check out was intriguing as well, it was close to the time the store closed so they only had two lanes open. i had a good twenty minutes in line to watch the cashier. Again the night before the checker had been very thorough with my money but he had also been very thorough with the woman in front of me's money. The checker this night was letting everyone blow through including the person in front of me who bought 3000 quai worth of merchandise. When it came to my 300 quai purchase she put each one of those bills through their paces, finally bringing out the uv lamp to verify their authenticity. i cannot believe these employees think i would be capable of stealing anything just based on my appearance (tone of righteous indignation). next i go maybe i will wear all my really baggy clothes and try to appear as furtive as i can :).

here is a random traffic jam on the one lane street outside my apartment. It was caused by the first accident i have seen here at the intersection right outside my apartment.

you can also see the lack of street lamps illustrated. Props to my dad for actually spotting this (or at least saying he noticed it:) before reading the answer. What the picture does not convey is the amount of people laying on their horn, not just little beeps. Sounds like at least fourteen of the drivers had gone narcoleptic and fallen asleep resting on the horns. Supposedly my camera allows you to record audio with pictures. i will have to try that out and see if i can still post those pictures.

here is the dinner i had last night with William, grass (her English name), Michael and hua. It was good to get out and eat with people.

tonight i get to go to ms China's holiday party. It should be cool, it is in guomao where i went last week. Except this time the places will be open and we will be having dinner / party in one of the hotels. Also i will get to meet people from the other Microsoft building in Beijing. However i will not be meeting anyone's family. The event is only for full time employees. Instead of celebrating with your family you are celebrating with your Microsoft family (actual quote from the posters).

music for the day, s - puking and crying - suicide squeeze. a Seattle native who used to be the lead singer for carissa's wierd before they went kaput. What i imagine the postal service would sound like if all the singing were done by a female with a vulnerable voice and the music were darker than i imagine postal service to be. Of course that could be completely off base because i have never listened to the postal service album. The gist though is that her music is dark pop electronic. The first song on this album i end up listening to at least three times every time i listen to this album.