Greenery at last or All you can eat

The trees and flowers are blooming at last. The grass is coming up and it's green! Quite a change from when I arrived. Everything was cold, gray, dry and dead. Now it's warm, gray, dry and green. Woo Hoo! Spring fever!

I tried a new restaurant today called Xiao Wang. It was pretty good, but it was no Dirty Chinese. I don't know the real name of the place (now I do - Tian Fu Yuan), but everyone calls it Dirty Chinese. It's certainly not a place to go for the atmosphere. But the food is delicious.

My favorite is the Hong You Ji Rou, which is fried chicken strips in a sweet caramel sauce. I could eat it all day. They also have the best Gongbao Jiding (Kung Pao Chicken) that I have tasted yet. Another great dish is the ganbian biandou, a fantastic green bean recipe.

Well now that I've completely wandered from foliage to food, I will get back to work.

UPDATED:

Dirty Chinese: The Photo

My Name Isn't Luka

When you go shopping in the local markets, the vendors each occupy a closet-sized space where they hawk their wares. Imagine a 5-story indoor flea-market where no one speaks your language, but will attempt to attract foreigners by yelling, "Looka! Looka!" or "Lady!Lady!" Vendors will often grab your elbow and forcefully pull you into their area, ask you to pay 10 times what a local would pay (yet still cheaper than the States) and then argue that their boss would be upset with them if they gave it to you at the price you wanted (which is still more than the locals pay).

What I think is most humorous is that a lot of vendors know the word "sir," but "ma'am" is always replaced by "lady." So as I walk down the aisle with my wife I hear:

"Sir, you like wallet?"
"Lady, Lady, looka, buy this purse."

Very subtle.