There are so many things here that are different than in the states, but we've become so accustomed to them that I don't take much notice of them sometimes. I just remembered something today about when we went out to eat on Christmas eve. We went to a nicer hotel we had seen and heard about called the Kempinski Hotel where there was a sit-down "western" restaurant. Almost any food in China that's European or American is called "western".

When we first walked in, we didn't know where to go, so we told the greeter man at the door we wanted to go to their restaurant. We didn't know that there was something going on in a restaurant/bar area that night for foreigners because of it being Christmas eve. It must have been something special though because the price at the door was outrageous (like $300/person), and the foreign people at the door were really dressed up fancy. We asked if there was another "western" restaurant in the hotel, and there was on the second floor.

Most of the happenings of the rest of the night were normal. I ordered one of my favorites - a real cheeseburger. Ain't that fancy? Ok, so it isn't fancy, but it's not very common in China, and I like it. Brant ordered some shredded chicken sandwich which he quickly devoured after it arrived at our table. I think we ordered Alfredo pasta for Eden. My burger came, and it was the oddest thing. It seemed that after they had cooked it and assembled it with various toppings, they set the top of the bun to the side, and cracked open an egg and plopped it right on top of the hot burger. It was just cooked enough to make the white look white instead of clear, but the whites were still very uncooked, and of course the yolk was totally soft. There's not many foods on earth that have quite the ick factor as uncooked egg white right on your plate to eat! After some scraping (pouring?), my burger was very edible and very tasty. We've seen this throw-an-egg-on-the-dish type of thing before in China, but never on a cheeseburger!