Friday After Class

When I walked home from class yesterday, the sky was bright blue and the sun was shining like it meant it. I found myself behind this colorful foursome. They're walking to their dorms with the lunch they just purchased from the cafeteria -- see the plastic bags filled with rice and veggies?

I wanted street food for lunch, so I walked out the north gate and saw an older guy adjusting his wares for the noon-time rush. He's selling candied haws, which are haws with a super-sweet brittle coating. They are popular with the students even though many of them say they don't like foods that are too sweet. On a few occasions, students have bought them for me. I usually take a few polite nibbles and hope they don't notice I'm not really eating it.

One stand I often buy food from is the little window that sells Chinese McMuffins (my name for them). They fry up an egg, some shredded potatoes, some vegetables, some spice, and sometimes some meat, and then stuff it in a flat, round bread. If you come to China, we'll go out and get some of these for a quick meal. I'm not sure why the workers are in camouflage.

I decided to try something new, so I stopped to watch this couple frying up a mess of green veggies, carrots, lettuce, and egg. When the filling was done, they put it between two big flat sheets that looked like tortillas and rolled it like a burrito. I will henceforth call this creation the "Chinarito," or perhaps the "Churrito." I didn't like it all that much, but it was a lot of food for a small price.

The last picture shows my lunch: Churrito as the entree and Twisty Goodness for dessert. It was nice to walk into my warm apartment and enjoy a ready-made meal after my crisp, sunshiny walk home from class.