Supermarket Run!

After going to the Great Wall of China on Saturday, it was brought home to many of us just how far we really were from home. So we did what any self-respecting American tourist would do. We trekked out the the farthest, most expensive supermarket, and bought home food. In this case, spaghetti.

Now, the reason we were even able to find spaghetti in China was because we went to the supermarket in the middle of Beijing's version of Embassy Row. It's size made it more like "embassy district", to be fair. And because this is China, the government has handily provided each embassy with a Chinese guard for their front gate. It was...interesting. More interesting was the fact that we were there for the afternoon changing of the guard. That meant that small groups of Chinese soldiers were marching around the district the whole time were were there, picking up and dropping off soldiers as they passed embassies.

We also passed a really weird front gate to...something. I'm not really sure what.

As well as the most awesome sign in the history of exploding cars. Or something.

Finally, after all that, we made it to the supermarket, bought our wonderfully ordinary dinner, and returned to the apartment to put it all together. Wonderful. There was just one problem. When we bought the spaghetti and sauce and Italian bread, we forgot to consider the limitations of our kitchen. And, of course, since we bought the least expensive, recognizable tomato sauce, it was in a can. *HINT* (we don't own a can opener) But we figured it out eventually.

With a bottle opener.

Really.