I’m starting a new series showing photos of Beijing. I hope these seemingly random photos give you a unique perspective on what it is like living in China’s capital.

It isn’t uncommon to see signs and posters like this in clubs and bars in Sanlitun.

In mall bathrooms, you can sometimes find toiled paper dispensers that first need to be scanned with a QR reader before they dispense.

Taken in the same mall as the QR code toilet paper dispenser.

It is right to be fearful of opaque enforcement of law in China, but those who enforce laws are almost always pleasant peasants from some of China’s most rural parts. The two men pictured above were thrilled that I wanted to take their pictures. They each took one with me, and I was the first foreigner they ever talked to.

Beijing’s pace of life is ravenous. The city and its long work hours are soul sucking. Pictured above is someone burning paper. Burning paper is commonly used as a form of familial piety/ancestor worship. It is common throughout the year to burn paper money to provide for dead relatives. I once saw parents burning a paper computer, I’m assuming, to provide digital entertainment to deceased child in the afterlife. The speed of life hasn’t changed China’s most raw traditions.

I love, absolutely unequivocally love, 担担面. Dan Dan Noodles are the best of Chinese noodles. Traditional noodles soaked in a mixture of fiery chili oil, Sichuan pepper corns, sugar, Chinese vinegar, and soy sauce. The silky texture,spicy and complicated, is to die for. I could eat it daily ( I did for a few months). Most versions will include dried and fermented mustard greens- adding a slight sour depth. This is quintessential Sichuan cuisine that should be tried by everyone who can handle heat in their food.

I’ve never had better cocktails than those I had in Beijing. My favorite bar, Bronze (located in Shuangjing), elevates cocktails to fine art.  When in Beijing, DO NOT get cocktails in tourist areas (unless you like liquid garbage, then be my guest). Sanlitun has some good cocktail bars, but wealthy residential areas around and in the central business district have some truly spectacular bars.