Yesterday I bought a bike from a used bike shop that really was nothing more than a run down liitle shack on the side of the road. The guys had a handfull of bikes and would do repairs for he most part. I ended up paying about 90 Yuan for both the bike and the lock...that's about 11 dollars. This thing is pretty old and beat up, but I did that on purpose. Lots of the instructors were buying new bikes and I want someone to steal their bike first. No ones going to take my bike!!!
I ended up wandering through some of the hutong yesterday. Hutong are little stone/brick buildings that have a very ramshackle appearance to them. They are the homes for about a quarter of beijings residencts. Some of the things I've seen have been really cool in this stereotypical sort of way...like for instance the old man outside practicing tai chi. Everyone is also selling watermelons... I'm going to buy one soon and invite a bunch of people to eat it with me.
Last night we went to the night market, which is really for tourists...essentially. It has lots of really weird foods running the gamut from the tame lamb to starfish and cicadas. I got adventurousand bought a skewer of scorpions. Overall it didn't have much taste. They were crunchy like tempura and tasted heavily of the oil in which they had been fried. I also had some glazed candied grapes that were on a skewer. They had a hard sugar shell and while really good were actually too sweet for me. I gave the skewer to Jen after eating about a quarter and she didn't even finish it.
Today the Forbidden Palace....
I ended up wandering through some of the hutong yesterday. Hutong are little stone/brick buildings that have a very ramshackle appearance to them. They are the homes for about a quarter of beijings residencts. Some of the things I've seen have been really cool in this stereotypical sort of way...like for instance the old man outside practicing tai chi. Everyone is also selling watermelons... I'm going to buy one soon and invite a bunch of people to eat it with me.
Last night we went to the night market, which is really for tourists...essentially. It has lots of really weird foods running the gamut from the tame lamb to starfish and cicadas. I got adventurousand bought a skewer of scorpions. Overall it didn't have much taste. They were crunchy like tempura and tasted heavily of the oil in which they had been fried. I also had some glazed candied grapes that were on a skewer. They had a hard sugar shell and while really good were actually too sweet for me. I gave the skewer to Jen after eating about a quarter and she didn't even finish it.
Today the Forbidden Palace....
