The air quality was much better everywhere except Beijing... I thought Shanghai was fine. All our breakfasts were full Western buffets with all the trimmings... they were easily the best meal of the day to sustain our energy.
Local Meal Quality varied for the meals outside of our hotels. There is very little meat in their diet, but all was edible. The strangest thing is the way they cut their meat. For example, a chicken leg would be cut laterally several times so that each bit contained a piece of the bone. (Someone needs to teach them how to de-bone their meats).
The best meal? in the very expensive underground international mall below our hotel in Beijing, there was a FatBurger franchise. After 3 days in Beijing, it was a delicious taste of home. A large single burger with the trimmings was about $8.00. I don't remember how much the accompanying chocolate milkshake was, but it was delicious!
In answer to your other question about fast food availability, Starbucks, KFC, and Burger King, Subway, and McDonalds were all represented... You can see that a 6 inch tuna sub at Subway was 25 Yuan... There were approximately 600 Yuan to the dollar. Here are the only photos I managed to take as we passed them.
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