Eric's Beijing Diary

Had dinner with one of the volunteers from the youth hostel and the British guy, who has finally come back from his search for rabies vaccine. He finally found some in Lanzhou. I don't know if it was really efficacious, because I understand the first dosage is supposed to be taken in the first 24 hours, and he sure didn't make that deadline. But he is still alive.

As I have mentioned before, the town of Lanmgusi is on the border of Sichuan Province and Gansu Province. So if you want beef noodle soup (a Lanzhou specialty), you can find it. But there is also the spicy Sichuan fare that is more commonly associated with that province. But it's better. If you go to Chengdu or Chongqing today, you see lots of restaurants advertising the modernized Sichuan hotpot. But the little place we went to this evening was an old, old Sichuan country restaurant. The proprietor of the place wore an old Mao jacket and looked like Deng Xiaoping. Really delicious food. I'll take this over the modern places in the big cities anytime.

There was a mural on one wall with the old Chinese expression, "Ma Dao Cheng Gong," which means, roughly, "Ride a horse to success." Or maybe, "Be a horse to success." Or "Horse your way to success." I don't know. Hard to translate.