Good Buns.

I’ve got a cold that has been bothering me for the last seven days (onward, up to forever), but that didn’t stop me from getting out this weekend with my wife.  We have one of those indoor bamboo plants, the kind that grow in water. Usually, nothing green survives in our house, but this one is actually doing well.  Better than well.  As in, it’s outgrowing its container.

So we went looking for a new one.

This should have been easy.  Beijing is the capitol of a lot of things, and cheap, good-looking vases should be one of them.  I see them everywhere.  But the one time I need to find one?  Nothing.

We went to Pan Jia Yuan.  Up and down those aisles.  For hours.  We saw a couple that were nice, but not great.  Not, as my wife says, “inspirational.”  Pan Jian Yuan used to be a place where you could find treasures, things that are totally unique.  But not anymore.  It caters mostly to the tourists.

One bright point?  An old Beijing baked bun shop near the market. It always has people waiting in line.  The line is part of the fun.  Everyone’s in it together.

This place only bakes twenty of these buns every five to six minutes, so last time I was there I had to wait forty minutes just to reach the front of the line.  Why the long wait?  Yes, they’re good, but it’s a logistics thing, too.  The bun shop sells them for .70 cents each, but if you buy ten, you get one free.  So usually people buy eleven, which means that each time the buns are done, usually the line only moves forward two people.

I was lucky, though…this time I got to the front in fifteen minutes, and only asked for two, one for me and my wife.