Dreary outlook

Can I just share for a moment the view from my windows? I was going to say more about it, but really, the pictures speak for themselves.

Welcome to Shenyang!

The building on the left with the two matching toppers is actually a golden yellow.

Below, we have the beautiful view... of the air conditioning for the shopping mall below.

Ahh, a beautiful sunset!

From our apartment, you can see the folks shopping down on the street. There's a TV billboard that Penny likes to watch when she should be napping. Also, there are blow-up red rainbows that advertise stuff: grand openings, weddings, sales, etc.

On this last picture, you can just barely see the bane of my existence: the dreaded lamb kebab shop. The McDonald's right there under the picture of Usain Bolt constantly plays an ice-cream-truck-like song. It's 8 bars long and ends with the "ba dap bap bap baaaah- I'm Lovin It" theme-- repeat 12 hours a day ad infinum. Then the shopping mall on the very far left advertises its specials and its own theme music non-stop as well. But the lamb kebab shop goes above and beyond. The three employees outside BBQing kebabs wear microphone headsets. They don't call out or advertise, but they just have their every word turned up to about a million decibels and broadcast to the whole world. My teeth rattle when I walk by it, and by the time it wafts up to our apartment on the 20+ floor, it's just a headache-inducing garbled mess. I hate it.

I love me some Chinese lamb kebabs. There are about 4 places to buy them a short distance from our house, including the Uyghur place a block away where the guy said I was pretty. We go there. We boycott the megaphone one.

Shenyang has some wonderful aspects too, but on days like this, I can only dream about leaving on vacation.