During the week I was in the US, I didn’t think about going to McDonald’s.   One of my least favorite restaurants of all time, the only recent time that I can remember going is after a climb, maybe it was the Torment-Forbidden Traverse, when, as usual, we were coming out at 1 in the morning or so.   Of course, McDonald’s is always welcome then.

In China, I go more frequently.   My reasons:   1) It’s quick; many of the restaurants that I go to here either involve a lot of talking with people that I’ve met (sometimes I just don’t have the time) or I don’t know how to order a particular dish.   The latter is the more common one; I usually don’t want to trust the various weird food without it having been vouched for by someone I trust.   The other reason is that it does taste American and it’s nice to have the change.

Here are some “cool” McDonald’s pictures.   These were taken in Dong Men at, apparently, the very first McDonald’s to come to mainland China way back in 1990, back when China was a much more different place and even more wild.   This is a huge fast food joint:   three stories.   However, looking at the pictures now, they don’t seem to convey just how busy the place was.   McDonald’s is very popular with the kids, of course, as are the other popular US fast food places:   KFC and the elegant dining experience of Pizza Hut.

The good news about China being full of McDonald’s restaurants is Thomas Friedman‘s curious theory, from his book Lexus and the Olive Tree:   “…no two countries that both had a McDonald’s had fought a war against each other, since each got its McDonald’s.”