I walked out of the bus station in ZhengZhou into a whirlwind of Asian madness.

I was eveloped by a chaos of colorful signs, people, traffic, bicycles, and pollution. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere, and 10,000 horns blasting filled the air. I am vagabonding in Asia again, and I love it!

ZhengZhou is the closest big city (I think around 6 million) to the Songshan mountains and kung fu land. Its not entirely an unattractive city, but is still concrete and gray, as expected in an industrial city. I humped around all day with my rucksack on, covering miles and miles, and never saw another single foreigner. And for good reason. There is really nothing to see here. Unless you are an escapee from one of the kung fu schools in search of shopping or good food, there is no reason for tourists to come here.

That also explains why I was such a spectacle. People were nearly crashing their bicycles to stare at me, some openly pointing and stopping in mid-step. It stressed me out at first and I just wanted to turn and shout “YES I AM WHITE AND YES I AM 30CM TALLER THAN YOU!”. I dont think it helped that I was carrying my bags as well, as backpacking is not really that popular for the Chinese as well. After a while, I got used to the celebrity-like attention and just started returning smiles and exchanging “hellooooos” for “Ni hao”. If I had a dollar for every teenage girl that giggled and smiled at me today I could buy this city.

I had several missions that I wanted to accomplish while in this city, but none more important than one.

Worse than a dinosaur, I want meat.

My muscles are screaming for protein, after 1 month of nothing but chunks of fat, I would probably bite into a live cow. Other than the random pieces of bone and chunks of hooves that they throw into the green beans, I have been meat-free for a long time.

I rounded the corner and nearly burst out into manical laughter. I was standing in the warm glow of the golden arches.

McDonalds. All that is wrong and evil about America. At home, I would run from this damn logo, but here I almost ran up and hugged the sign. I did not care if it is an evil empire, hell, I wouldn’t have cared if Satan himself were in the back flipping up burgers with a grin, I nearly broke my legs getting inside.

This place was popular! I joined the queue, and the manager ran up and gave me VIP treatment to the front. He was proud to have a Westerner in his Western establishment. They handed me an English menu even, but I surprised them and ordered in Chinese. I got a Big Mac meal, supersized (which made it the equivalent to a medium size in America) and an additional 6 pieces chicken McNuggets – all for under $4!

I retreated to a quiet corner to drop my pack and enjoy my feast. I could almost see a lump of solid fat traveling down my unsuspecting arteries, but wow it was good. After getting my fix, I vowed to stick to the local street food, at least for the next month or two.

I spent the next 5 hours wandering around Er Chi Ta, the main centre in ZhengZhou, where you can find every type of shop you are looking for. My train for Beijing leaves in 2 hours, and after getting up at 05:30 this morning and running several miles, getting no sleep from the party, and eating enough McDonalds to kill a small bear, I am nearly comatose.

Damn, life is good.