Another busy day - this time alone with my guidebook and map.

Just spent the day wandering around about a square mile from the hotel. I "almost" got lost a few times. Hot and dusty, but mostly very pretty. Still noisy in the streets. Lots of honking and general noise. Huge amounts of construction.

This is just an ordinary street scene - on a busy highway. There are many areas don't look this way, but a surprising number that do.

Strange to see McDonald's all over the place with only Chinese characters on the windows.
Walked past an Embasy - Soviet, I think. Note the guards...A local man walked past me as I snapped the photo. Normally, the local people, men in general seem to go out of their way to ignore me. This one looked at me, shook his head and said "nooh" then scurried on past. No one ran me down to snatch my camera, so I guess it was OK.

Found a wonderful park, again, obviously not really set up for tourists. Again, ancient buildings - this one for animal sacrifice. In this park was the "Temple of the Sun".



Beautiful, shady lanes. Birds chirpping. Like Central Park, I suppose. Except there was a tall fence around the park and huge buildings being erected, with banging and clanging.
Then I took the "short cut" to go back to the hotel...this was all in the span of about 5 hours. Very congested - and not a person of European descent in sight!

As I walked further, I realized I was "not in Kansas anymore, toto". Instead of tree/flower lined streets with nice, wooden benches - we had fading paint and dust.
This line of cars went on for about a mile - this was a little side-street I was walking down. Now I see why everyone, including people in suits, ride bikes. It's quicker!


By now, I was very hungry. So I stopped at a friendly looking place. Absolutely no English words. So I pointed.
What I got was pretty much lo-mien with a wonderful peanut sauce. Little bit spicey. Shredded cucumbers on top. All for $1.50US. Including the beer. Amazing.

So, the journey back to the hotel continued. For a while, I was getting just a "wee bit" uncomfortable. This area was pretty run down...but also in a state of construction, like everywhere else. Note the green bins. They were full of beer. Out in the hot sun. Wonder if they supply the restaurants we've been frequenting. Must not hurt the flavor too much!

I made it back in one piece....footsies tired again!