We found China!

We've been here for over 3 months now, and I feel like I just found REAL China.

Somehow, living in a swanky apartment building on the main shopping street just doesn't cut it. I mean, it's cool to live upstairs from an H&M. If I want a McDonald's ice cream cone, I have a choice of 5 different locations within walking distance. When I want to feel underdressed, I can just go walking in the fancy mall, past Hugo Boss, Armani, Burberry, and a bunch of other stores I'd never shop at. But it doesn't feel particularly Chinese.

So one day we went walking the other way. And right around the corner, there it was: real China.

In these pictures you'll notice that many things are run down and old. That's not exactly what I mean by "real." Instead, it's the feeling of community, the fact that this is where real people live, work, eat, and sleep. These people are neighbors and friends, instead of customers and employees.

In the background is our high-rise apartment, right next-door to this one, which is probably somewhere in line for becoming another high-rise building in the future.

It's an alleyway and a slum, but it has so much more character than our place will ever have.

In front of our neighborhood Xinjiang restaurant, they have a sheep tied to a light pole. It was there for several days, but last time I passed, I didn't see it.

On a completely unrelated note, they serve excellent lamb kabobs!

Not sure how old this building is, but we love the vintage Lei Feng painting. And Kevin would make a good model for modern socialist propaganda, too.

A fruit-and-vegetable market spilling onto the front steps.

If there's one thing I miss about the last several places we've lived, it's the gardens. Our shopping street has literally not a single living plant on it, not even trees. The park is a 20-minute walk away, and it's a little sad to have so little green around.

But in an apartment courtyard, we found this little garden. They told us the retired people in the complex care for this garden. Penny liked the bugs.

This apartment building is directly across the street from a new high-rise, and the tenants have put signs up in their windows that say "I want sunlight," and "Return my sunlight." I can only imagine what the Shenyang winters are going to be like for them now that there's a building shading them.