Beijing was a blast. Again, we didn’t have that much time, but we tried to jam in as much as we could. The night we arrived, we hopped on the subway and headed up to Tiananmen Square. Unfortunately the Forbidden city had already closed for the day, but we explored around and took pictures of the square instead.

The Forbidden City

In addition to our visit to the Great Wall of China, we also headed up to see the Olympic Green. The Olympic buildings and towers were all really impressive. It felt a little eerie though, as not many people were around. It was kind of forgotten except for a handful of tourists and some vendors trying to sell pictures and children’s toys.

Olympic Green. Photo: Mike Fallone

While we were walking through the Olympic Green, a man stopped us and asked us if we could take his picture. He set mike up with his camera, and posed away. Then he asked if he could take a picture of us, and started directing us as if it were a photo shoot. He posed Mike and I like it was prom. Once he was happy with the pictures he took of the two of us, he gave the camera back to Mike and decided that he needed a series of him and I. After about 10 different poses, he took the camera, scrolled through the shots and waved us on. I really regret that we didn’t think to take any pictures on our own cameras, as the whole thing was hilarious.

We’re still smiling, cause this is right before we got a mouthful of sand.

Our final night in Beijing we headed over to Donghuamen Night Market for some more exploring. It was packed with people and all kinds of food and souvenirs. Along with delicious looking fruit skewers, the food stalls were lined with fried scorpions, snakes, and beetles. The first stall we stopped at convinced us to try snake and snake skin (which is apparently good for your skin). Feeling confident at that point, we decided to try scorpions and starfish so that we could say that we did (I don’t think I would do it again). We finished off our snacking with some fruit rather than moving on to the juicy looking tarantulas. For the record, scorpions are just crunchy and starfish taste like sand.

Tagged: Asia, Beijing, China, food, market, Olympic, travel