Well, here I am at last in Beijing, the City That Never Plays Music That Makes Any Sense Whatsoever.  I landed yesterday and after going through customs and immigration (including a sign with the refreshingly un-PC label “foreigners” on it), I found myself at that part of the airport where you meet up with people.  So there were all these folks holding signs and shouting and carrying on, and it really felt rather like being a rock star, except that none of them were really looking for me anyway, and even if they were, the only vaguely rock staresque qualities I possess are godly phat kazoo skillz, and a knack for trashing hotel rooms and dating crazy women.  Here at last I met up with Meg and Bryan, two of my sister’s friends in town who were ever so kind enough as to put me up (and put up with me) whilst I’m here in the sunny and socialist People’s Republic.

            Beijing is, in many ways, a thoroughly modern city; there’s lots of taxi cabs and high rises and neon signs with demonic hell pigs n them that would make South of the Border proud.  Really, it’s almost like Northern Virginia, but with slightly more statues of Chairman Mao.

            I was warned before heading out to dinner with my hosts that many people here would stare at me, which struck me as a terribly considerate thing for them to do since it reminds me a great deal of home where everyone also tends to stare at me, the only difference being that in Beijing I’m not wearing a hat made out of duct tape.

            In what seems like a delicious bit of irony, I have discovered that every single showerhead here in Asia is at least seven feet off the ground, and that instead of coming in cartons or bottles, juice routinely comes in these freakishly ginormous juice boxes which would require, all other things being equal, a second grader the size of a special bus to do them proper justice.

            Many people here seem to drive proper American cars like we’re used to back in the states, like Hondas, Volkswagens and so forth, as well as a few weird-looking Chinese cars, like Buicks.  Traffic laws are completely optional here, and it is generally the case that anything flat enough to drive a car on counts as a road.  The drivers here a most friendly, and regularly hail each other by honking repeatedly and looking insanely angry.  Never in all my travels have I encountered a place so very ripe for the introduction of the Dixie horn.

            The labels on just about everything here are written solely in Chinese (though a few are in Spanish too) and since everything is packaged entirely differently here, it requires a good deal of faith to assume that none of the five flavors in your Cheerios is, in fact, cat.

            The architecture here is all most interesting from a Western point of view.  Many things here could easily pass for modern American buildings, though often whoever built them will just go ahead and throw on one of those old-timey pagoda roof things just so you don’t forget that you’re not in Richmond anymore.

            Of the few things over here written in English, only a few make any sense whatsoever.  The apartment water heater, for instance, proudly bears the legend “King of Thumb” and never having been one to pick a fight with a water heater, I’m just going to take its word for it.  Also, the other night we ate at a restaurant advertising “heartworming service” which I earnestly hope is a typo.

            This being China and all that, I had rather hoped that I might be witness to more awesome spontaneous kung-fu battles then I could keep track of.  Unfortunately, all the local street fighters and battle emporiums seem to know when I’m around and keep a low profile, because the closest thing I’ve seen so far is a couple of construction guys exchanging spirited wedgies at a bus stop (though The Spirited Wedgies would most certainly be a fine name for a band).  At any rate, I have decided to move on to my secondary Chinese quest, finding an elderly man in a dusty shop somewhere to sell me a mogwai or five.