měi yǒu dì fāng

Start of day 3 ... no more soap/lotion confusion, or philosophical date/time Confucianism.

The Wangfujing Grand Hotel has the best complimentary breakfast ever. Congee, fried eggs, this weird white watermelon with tiny black seeds, bacon, sausage etc etc etc. But most importantly, THREE types of fermented hard-boiled egg (salted, marinated and preserved). I've tried two. They are not bad actually.

Slept no more than 7 hours over the last 3 days.

Right now NAMOC (the museum) has about 10 different construction workers per room. Its like a complete interior makeover. Amazing. They are building an undulating floor throughout half of the ground level. Pictures to follow ... Though the construction seems of questionable quality. Yesterday I was walking on said floor (made of plywood) and I heard a crack and thought my foot was going to go through. Or maybe I've just been over-indulging at breakfast.

Last night I had dinner at this open-air market ... it was a quarter mile long and they had about 100 different types of kabobs, including: beef, lamb, squid, soft-shell crab, grasshopper, beetle, sea horse, scorpion and star fish. yes, star fish kabob. No idea. I didn't see anyone actually eating it. We just had beef and noodles. I thought it was tasty until Marek claimed that he thought it was actually horse.

Each group has a translator, which is pretty awesome. Our's is named Miao Miáo -- pronounced "meow meow". funny. She told us that the name of our project ("Noplace") is 没有地方 which is pronounced "měi yǒu dì fāng". Which doesn't actually have an etymological connection to "utopia" in Mandarin -- whose word for utopia is more like "heaven". fascinating right?

ok, ta ta for now my lovelies.