Wanfujing Snack Street and the Dongyue Temple

One of the trees at the temple. look closely, and you might be able to tell what it really is.

Entrance to Dongyue Temple

more gorgeous flowers.

Some of the statues in the temple

One of my friends taking a break.

Wanfujing Dajie, basically the Times Square of Beijing. basically, a major tourist destination.

thats me eating snake. yup, snake.

Sterling, one of my friends, eating snake.

yup, thats starfish

and, of course, scorpions.

As you can see, I the past couple of days have been pretty interesting. School has been the usual, tests, randomly assigned papers, unannounced exams, nothing too out of the ordinary. Needless to say, this weekend should be spent studying, but so far, that hasn't worked out too well. Saturday morning was dedicated to that wonderful test called the PSAT. Delightful fun. Dragging our feet and yawning, my friends and I debated on the merits of going out into Beijing for the day, or going home and doing some homework. Well, we (Julia, Jamie, Warren, and Becca) figured our mental states were not optimal for homework, and we could always do out homework tomorrow, so....off to the subway we went. Getting around Beijing on the subway is refreshingly cheap and always interesting. Most people go out and about on Saturdays so the subway was a little crowded. We blindly made our way in the direction of the Temple, a Taoist temple for those who want to know, and even managed to get off at the right stop. Now, we had two problems. One, finding our friends who had decided to bike. Finding an Asian kid on a bike in Beijing, by the way, is not the easiest task in the world. Then, we had to actually find the temple. After a brief argument of which way was east, we set off. We successfully got to the temple, situated between office buildings and shopping malls, and went off exploring. The pictures above are only a few examples of the hundreds of life size statues representing the different 'departments' of heaven and hell that the temple is famous for. Many of the departments were the department of signing papers, or the department for longevity, but the most interesting ones were the department for punishment and the department for Ghosts and Spirits of the Forest. The creators of the statues must have been pretty creative. After a few hours of wandering around, we went off on our next adventure, our ranks swollen by the edition of Eric, another friend from school. A brief stop at an indoor market and a quick snack later, we were again at the subway. This time, however, there were many more people, both on the subway and waiting to get on. Making sure we each knew where to get off, we shoved and pushed, got shoved and pushed, and eventually squeezed ourselves into the subway car. Hardly able to breathe and watching our bags closely, we couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation. Employing the use of our elbows, we managed to get off at our stop, but only just.

Walking up out of the subway, we looked around. We had arrived at the Silk Market, the best place in Beijing for tourists to go to buy fake designer anything. However, we knew better than to buy anything that was over a certain amount, and it helped that we all spoke a Chinese enough to barter, meaning we could, with a little luck, not get completely ripped off. I think we did pretty well. After an hour or two wandering around and talking to the salespeople, our stomachs began to express their displeasure at such a long day, so we decided to make our way to the Wanfujing snack street, only a few more subway stops away.

The Wanfujing snack street is famous for its wide variety of food, most of it edible, some of it unique. Since Wanfujing Dajie, the street where Wanfujing snack street is located, happens to be close to both Tienanmen Square and the various embassies, it is a haven for foreigners. Despite this, we still managed to stick out a little with our Chinese language skills and our complete willingness to eat anything. Walking along the street, we encountered a few more SYA kids, and Sterling joined us. Having already been to the snack street that night, he told us the best places to get weird food cheap. Wandering around the many stalls lining the street, we began our feast. After sampling a few more normal snacks, we started to get adventurous. It eventually got to the point where Sterling and Eric ordered some snake. At this point, a guy with a video camera walked up to us, asked if we were the Americans who he was told were eating everything. Mildly surprised, we nodded. He introduced himself from as a teacher from East England, and asked if he could ask a couple questions and take some video. Figuring there was nothing to lose, we nodded. After this incident, we threw caution to the wind and ate all the really strange stuff, never mind the consequences we suspected would announced themselves the next morning. First, I tried starfish. Not bad, and a little crunchy. However, a couple of kind Chinese food sellers told me I was eating it the wrong way. You are supposed to peel off the skin and eat the meat inside. Oops. Tasted better their way. Just tasted like really strong fish. After the starfish, we couldn't help ourselves and got some scorpion, or 蝎 子. The shop keepers by now had figured out who we were and called out to us as we passed. However, we were on a mission. We found some scorpion, and to the chagrin of the stall keeper, ordered some. After a few seconds hesitation, i bit into one. It was absolutely delicious, and I am not just saying that. It was a little salty, but I can't really explain the flavor. It is something you need to try for yourself. Emboldened by our success, Becca and I decided to try some snake. It wasn't as good as the starfish, and a little chewy, but as Uncle Steve always said, it tastes a little bit like chicken. After this, we were full, but I still couldn't help but get some fried dough balls to wash everything down. Since it was getting late, we decided to make our way home, and having enough fun on the subway for one day, we took a cab. All in all, a pretty successful day. As I am writing this, it is the next morning and I feel fine, except that I plan to spend the day studying for a midterm exam and do all my homework. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed. I miss you all.
Stephanie