Sorry I couldn’t fit it all in one blog entry. It was getting long. After our memorable Olympic Greens Trip, we went to the Hou Hai Park area. It was basically a more western tourist area around 3 lakes in the middle of Beijing. It was quite pretty and nice to be away from the mobs of people all frustrated standing outside of the Olympic area. We ate lunch at a cute restaurant on 
one of the lakes and stopped for some cotton candy. It was at this point that I saw the perfect picture to describe the differences in western and Chinese traffic management. In the US when you walk up to place you want to go you get in a line. Not so here. They practice what is called crowding. That is everyone goes for the entrance at once. After some pushing, depending on how big (or in this case whether you 
had a motorized boat or were just paddling) you reach your destination. Enjoy a good laugh. I did.We stopped at Prince Gong’s Mansion (the last emperor of China’s brother’s house) in the Hou Hai area. It was pretty, but watch out for the red shirt-wearing trolls. Note it is always helpfully to have a laowai in your possession when you look Chinese. My poor wife was
frequently pushed and shoved and had a hard time over all moving through crowds. So we learned to have me lead the way. This has nothing to do 
with me specifically, just that I am a noticeable foreigner. They make more room for me and say things like “oh, isn’t that cute how nicely he says excuse me” kind of like they way you would talk to a small child.Ah, but now to what all of you have been waiting for the Dong Hua Men
Night Market. This is a snack food market about 2 blocks long in the heart of Beijing that is only open from 5pm-10pm. That’s right I am talking about the rows of scary food most of you sane people would never even consider eating. As you all know – I 
am not sane and thus felt like a kid in a candy store. To those of you still reading this at Wells Fargo, I said I would eat from these stands and here is my proof. Here is a list of what Anne and I ate just to make you squirm. Three smaller fried 
scorpions, one large king scorpion, one deep fried starfish, some fried silk worms (that melt in your mouth), and some fried chicken hearts, still beating (just kidding). We had some other snacks that were not quite as scary, but I am going for shock value so I will leave them out. My favorite was the smaller scorpions; they tasted kind of like Fritos. You can ask Anne what her favorite was.
1 comments:
Alli says gross!
All we have here is horse and rabbit. We won't eat the horse (on principle), but I have had bunny...tasty!
Do they eat raw meat over there (like steak tartare? sushi doesn't count even though Japanese eat sushi and Chinese people eat dog flavored pringles).
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