Out and About in Shenyang

This is part of the Christmas decorations in the lobby of the building that I live in.


Does a purple Santa do it for you? Yeah, me neither.

We held a movie watching party the other day. While walking to the place where we were going to watch the movie, I stopped in a convenience store to buy some movie snacks. I picked out some cookies, sunflower seeds, and two bags of potato chips.

I dumped my loot on the checkout counter, and the clerk started tallying up the bill. She rang up one of my bags of chips, the took the second bag and placed it in a shelf behind her without adding it to the bill, and rang up the rest of my items.

A little confused and incredulous, I mentioned that my second bag of chips was behind her. “Yes,” she said. “You can’t buy that.”

I thought that I misunderstood her. “I can’t buy it? What do you mean?”

“You can only buy one bag,” she replied matter-of-factly.

“But I want two bags,” I protested. The situation was getting weird. “What, is there a shortage of chips? Are they being rationed?” I was sort of joking, sort of irritated at the lack of explanation of this strange turn of events.

“Yes,” she replied, probably calling my bluff. “They’re in limited supply.”

Sometimes I think there’s a conspiracy in China to drive me insane. This was one of those times.

I bought an extra can of beer to replace the chips. The clerk didn’t forbid that.

I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation for why I was not allowed to buy the second bag of chips. Maybe there was a promotion going in, and I inadvertently grabbed a bag of chips from the “special prize” shelf. Or maybe I am actually living in a Kafka novel. But the bottom line is, I was not allowed to buy the second bag of chips, and I was not given a reason why.

China.

Just a random street with some random lights. Reminds me of Christmas decorations, but apparently it’s just Shenyang decorations

As I was paying my phone bill yesterday, I made small talk with the guy in the shop. I commented that it was quite cold, and asked if it would get even colder. The high temperature yesterday was in the 20s.

He smiled and said yes, it would get much colder. He said that after it snows, the temperature typically drops. He cautioned me to dress warmly.

Sure enough, this morning it was 5°, with a predicted high of 24°. We can’t expect to see anything above freezing in the foreseeable future.

Shenyang enjoys four distinct seasons. Summer was very pleasant: high temperatures and low humidity. Autumn was short, though. Will winter be long?

The good thing is that there is a light dusty of snow on the ground, and Christmas decorations are going up. It feels very festive.

Wide-awake at 2:30am this morning. The wind was howling and it snowed some more, so I played with the night settings on my camera until I was sleepy again. My insomnia = your viewing pleasure of Shenyang at night.