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unsurprisingly there are gift shops at the great wall, but what is surprising is how few people are visiting on this day so the place feels virtually somewhat empty. my chinese friend says he’s never seen so few people at the great wall or such great weather. “you bring the luck!” lucky for us, not so lucky for the gift shop venders. after hiking the great wall, we didn’t eat at california beef noodle king usa – we ate at kfc. and it was good. it’s finger licking’ good! at the entrance of the great wall of china, there are some restaurants, one of which is the popular fast food restaurant in china called california beef noodle king usa which was started in mainland china by a chinese american in 1988.

my chinese friend told an amusing story about growing up wondering how americans could be so good at making noodles, looking for the chain on his first visit to the states and discovering that there were, in fact, no california beef noodle king’s in the usa! for whatever reason, the founder, mr. lee thought the california connection would be perfect for the restaurant brand. i’m a bit bummed that we didn’t ever eat at the restaurant that cnn says is one of 8 foreign fast-food chains worth a taste, but hi. ho.

according to wikipedia the restaurant changed its name to “Mr. Lee” but i saw many restaurants with the old name around shanghai and beijing. i’m guessing the name change is in advance of international expansion. seen at the great wall.

william gibson famously said, “the future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed”. hopefully china’s smog so thick you can only see the rising sun on LED screens and industrialized animal cloning is just a dystopian blade runner-ish future that doesn’t get evenly distributed ( and goes away altogether ).