We are cooking finally! It feels great to use the kitchen. There are 2 grocery stores within a 10 minute walk: the WuMart which has all your standard Chinese sundries and April Gourmet which is stocked with a lot of western essentials and isn't too overpriced. They have doughnuts there! My roommate had one, not bad, just a bit stale. They make them here in Beijing. And lots and lots of cheese. But I'm turning lacto in toleranto so that is exempto. The sky is so blue today I am going to run. Very much looking forward to that. Putting up some more pictures here of the Forbidden City and a trendy street in Hou Hai (back lake) where a lot of the old elements of the city have been preserved.