A Good Morning from Beijing

     It's Monday morning and we have a view from our 14th-floor hotel room, not to be taken for granted in Beijing.  On a bad air day the buildings in the upper third of the photo wouldn't be visible.  The forecast today is for a high in the upper 60's, so people shouldn't have to burn coal to keep warm and that bodes well for the air later.
     Terry is attending a conference here today and tomorrow.  We arrived last night, took the convenient Airport Express train as far as we could, and then had only a 15-minute walk to our hotel in the Chaoyang district.  If someone had been watching me walk that half-mile or so, it would probably have been obvious that I'm not a China veteran.  I am not able to roll my bag over a plop of spittle if I can help it.
     When we went out later to a grocery store to buy water, we checked out the Chinese version of a deli-case.  There were a couple dozen big crockery bowls of various regional pickled vegetables and sliced roots, some appealing and others not so much.  I would have missed the silkworm pupae, had Terry not pointed them out.    
     All along the sidewalk vendors displayed jewelry, cell phone cases, stylish glasses frames, stuffed toys and all kinds of other stuff that no one was stopping to look at, much less buy, which made me wonder if sidewalk vending on Sunday night has some purpose other than sales--maybe better than staying home in a crowded apartment with disagreeable family or roommates?
     One very informal sidewalk restaurant had several rows of tables:  low plastic stools scattered on either side of a trough made of bent sheet metal.  A group of young people sat down and the vendor brought over a scoop of glowing homemade charcoal to dump in the trough.  They warmed their hands, laughing and talking, while they waited for small skewers of meat to go on the coals, a relaxed Sunday night scene.