Beijing: Week One

I have discovered the secret to feeling young again!
All you have to do is move your whole life to Beijing and then try to survive there.
Seriously-- that's it!

Curtis and I have now been here for one week and we have transformed into toddlers. Everything is brand new to us, and it's either fascinating and exciting, or ridiculously frustrating. In order to cope, we have employed several techniques used by two-year-olds around the world that I shall explain here should you ever need to use them:

1) Vigorous pointing
Want the thing that THAT guy has? Vigorously point!
Want to explain where you wanna go on a map? Vigorously point!
We use this all the time with reckless abandon. Just be warned that sometimes vigorous pointing can end with you getting two big bowls of the most spicy, mouth-numbing noodle soup you've ever had in your life, because you couldn't actually read the menu explaining that this particular restaurant you wandered into specializes in SUPER HOT food using a certain spice that makes your whole mouth tingle like crazy and then go completely numb. So fun! And terrifying!

2) Look adorable and maybe a little bit dumb
Babies have known for centuries that this behavior will let you get away with a lot. Curtis is good at looking adorable and I am good at looking kinda dumb, so together we are invincible! If a guard questions the water bottle you have on the subway, keep smiling and nodding until he gives up and lets you pass. If the doorman at the apartment complex you wanna check out is getting all hung up on the fact that you don't have a key to the front gate, put on a cute face and shrug while muttering in English and voila! You're in!

3) Learn to use the potty
Not to brag or anything, but back in the states I was kind of an expert potty-goer. I mean, I could practically go in my sleep. And then I moved here and came across this:

Oh jeebus. When I encountered my first squatter the other day, I just stared at it suspiciously while mentally gauging how much I really needed to go. (Pretty badly.) Then came the questions... Which way do I face? (Toward the wall.) Why is there no toilet paper? (It's BYOP.) Why is the little open trash can filled with crumpled toilet paper? (You can't flush used paper. LOOK AWAY from the trash can.) Will the tight jeans I squeezed into allow me the luxury of squatting all the way down? (Thankfully, yes.) Why is the ground all wet? (Roll up your tight jeans and quit asking questions.)

Not all the toilets in Beijing are like this, but seeing what kind of toilet a place has is always an exciting adventure!

4) Try (mostly) everything just in case it's fun and/or delicious
Riding the equivalent of a tin can down a busy Beijing street: Partly fun but mostly crazy.

Meeting a new friend to have a wonderful hotpot experience with all sorts of interesting veggies: Fun AND delicious! Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

5) Take time for naps
Pointing, squatting, and all-day adventuring can be so draining. Here is Curtis wearing his sexy smog mask whilst napping on a crowded subway ride. He's a good little napper, that one.

6) Finally, when things don't go your way, scream and cry
Okay, so we haven't actually had to do this yet, but I was tempted to this morning when I woke up to this view of "hazardous" levels of smog from our hotel room:

The air is expected to be better by this evening. Until then, we'll probably just stay indoors and watch one of the awesome $2 DVDs we bought from the tiny, hidden back room of a marketplace we stumbled upon.

Oh China.
I can't wait to see what you have in store for us next.