Where are all the big dogs?

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.. There were a lot of firsts yesterday. Don't fall out of your chair, but yesterday I ate my first authentic Chinese meal... wait for it.. with Chopsticks! I actually got some in my mouth too! We were on a tour at the Great Wall and they fed us this extravagant lunch with 9 different dishes and I actually liked 4 out of the 9. I couldn't get any of the rice in my mouth with the chopsticks, so I ended up using my soup spoon to shovel it in. However, I ate everything else with chopsticks although my form fell apart early. I adapted well though, and I give myself 4 out of 5 stars for effort. I lost a star for using the soup spoon for something other than soup. Another 1st came about 12 hours later and I lost the bet as to who would get sick first. They call it Montezuma's Revenge in Mexico.. I guess here it would be called Mao's Revenge.
We bought our first souvenirs yesterday. Or rather, I begged hbf to buy me an I <3 Beijing shirt and a watch that has Mao waving on the face, and he conceded. It wasn't easy, but I'm not one to give up when it comes to hbf buying me things, ESPECIALLY when it's a watch that has Mao waving to me whenever I look at the time. The I <3 Beijing shirt was the only shirt I found with Chinese characters on it so I just had to have it.
Sunday morning we went to a park where tons of people gathered to sing, dance, and squat thrust together (no joke). It was like walking into the book 1984, except everyone had a smile on their face and seemed to enjoy the camaraderie. Since they were all speaking mandarin, I couldn't distinguish if they were actually talking in Newspeak, but it wouldn't surprise me.. Actually, that park was such a pleasure to be in. Happy noises filled the atmosphere and all the dancers and singers looked like they truly enjoyed their craft. But of course, Big Brother is always watching.. Right?
We are leaving Beijing today for the west and hopefully it will be less expensive. A cool wind has blown the smog away for the last couple of days so we were able to actually see the sun! We didn't think it would happen, but apparently the wind gods had mercy and did us a favor. It really is a beautiful city even though you can't see 100 yards in front of you. I have noticed an alarming trend though. There are only small dogs here in Beijing. I have seen probably 20 dogs, and none of them have been bigger than a miniature poodle. Is that because the small ones have no delicious meat on their body? They are all tendon and bone and not worth the effort to cook, apparently. I had read that over 120 restaurants took dog off the menu for the Olympics, but we couldn't find out whether they had put it back on the menu yet. I suppose they have.. I should probably be memorizing the most important sentence in our phrase book: I don't eat dog.