The Bubble

We arrived in Beijing exactly 3 months ago today. Every now and then, Brett and I still just look at each other and say "We're in China!" because really it could be anywhere.

Not really, of course. We don't speak the language, can't read shop signs or understand the traffic.
No one around looks like us at all.
Food is different. Shopping is different.
Vendors are speaking a completely alien tongue - and they repeat themselves when we don't get it.

I guess, because I've never been one to talk to random strangers - like in a store, or out for a walk - it's not as weird to me. I have always been very good at keeping an impenetrable bubble around myself. I can sit in an airport, or walk the streets of a town, go shopping, and not notice people unless they really work to get my attention (call my name, lean into my line of sight and say "excuse me, miss?" - scream bloody murder, you get it). 

So I can feel perfectly at home on an average day, and not even notice where I am. I know how to point at food on a vendor's cart and say  how many of an item I want. I understand numbers when they say the cost. What more do I need?

It sounds very exotic that I'm in Beijing, and we've seen some cool things. But we did that when we lived in the Midwest, too. What cool things are around you? What events happen that may be notable? It's the same here, except that we are the foreigners, so to all our friends and family, we are in the place with everything happening.

Get out!
Find the thing that makes your life "exotic"!
Milk it.