Day 5 in beijing was the first day i actually did any of the tourist sites! Finally motivated myself to get away from the comfort of rellies and get out on my own. This meant of course having so speak mandarin again. Up to this point in time in beijing my mando had taken a backseat. Time to polish it off and slog out a few misguided dialogues! Didn't actually roll out of bed until midday, so didn't really make the most of the day! Headed to tiananmen square on the metro first with the intention of se
e
ing mao's entombed body. Once i got there though i changed plans and headed first for the forbidden city, which is where the emperor used to live, work and play. Unfortunately i actually never got back to check out tiananmen sq properly, so only had a peek at it from the outside. It's alot smaller than i imagined. That's not to say it's a small square compared to others i've seen, but after hearing the square can hold 1 million people i just imagined it to be as far reaching as the eye could see.
To get to the forbidden city from tiananmen you have to pass through something like 5 gates before you reach the ticket booth. Once again my expectations were completely off. Previously I'd seen alot of chinese movies set in ancient times with shots of 'outdoor sound stage' forbidden cities or digitally edited. It's much sm
aller than i expected! It was impressive, but after wandering around for a few hours all the surroundings started to look the same to me. You couldn't enter most of the important buildings either, with only viewing stations at the front. And these were always packed with pe
ople, once again jostling each other to get a pic and a look.
Thought i'd be real good and got the english audio guide. Was a waste of time in the end though since i was half focused on taking pictures and wasn't paying attention to the guide. I thought the female audio guide's voice had a slight sultry tone to it, which i found pretty funny. Alot of the
commentary involved her pointing out features outside and within the buildings, and explaining some of the ceremonies that used to take place. I must admit i found this a bit boring, but the stories about the emperor's concubines was interesting. I didn't know they had a whole hierarchy and rankings for them! And then there was all the stories and intrigue about various empresses and concubines plotting against each other and killing off secret hiers to the throne. Facinating stuff. 
Ah nothing like letting your kids leave their mark in the forbidden city
They were just about closing up when i left the forbidden ci
ty, and was just in time to see the 
flag lowering ceremony in tiananmen. This and the flag raising in the morning is pretty popular with the people and tourists, so i could only get a view from afar. In the end there wasn't much to see, just a brigade of soldiers marching out and then back through the north gate with the flag.
After this was feeling a bit peckish, so headed off to donghuamen night food market for dinner. There you can try all sorts of specialty snacks and small dishes originating from the various regions in china, and of c
ourse some of it is pretty exotic. You can get pretty much anything and everything on a stick. Hearts, kidneys, worms, all manner of insects, scorpions, bee cocoons, starfish, seahorses and of course no exotic food market is complete without the obligatory penis. In this case, sheep's penis. It's pretty popular amongst the tourists, and more specifically die-hard enthusiasts who'll give anything a go. When i arrived the first sight to greet me was a white girl bending over a 
trash bin retching out whatever had been in her mouth. *LOL* This unsettled me a little, but i still decided to try some fried crayfish...... and that's as exotic as it got for me.
Ended up throwing most of it away because the inside of it tasted like prawns brains. yuck. what a waste of money. After that horrid experience went for something a little more safe and bought this thing that was like 2 fried eggs with french fries embedded through the middle. i thought, surely this isn't a chinese local delicacy. Looked more like something to co
me out of an american highway diner! they probably put this stuff here for the tourists who chicken out and can't find anything else to eat. Everything else i ate was pretty boring, lamb kebabs, hot and sour noodles, some jelly tofu cubes, a green jelly dessert and some fried cream cake. For anyone who wants to go there one day, theres actually 2 food streets around the wangfujing shopping mall. The bigger one donghuamen is at the north end of the wangfujing mall , and then theres another smaller one near the south end of the mall. Both branch off to the west. Each one sells different exotic snacks if you want to experience the whole range.
I never found out which of these is the sheep's penis.
e
ing mao's entombed body. Once i got there though i changed plans and headed first for the forbidden city, which is where the emperor used to live, work and play. Unfortunately i actually never got back to check out tiananmen sq properly, so only had a peek at it from the outside. It's alot smaller than i imagined. That's not to say it's a small square compared to others i've seen, but after hearing the square can hold 1 million people i just imagined it to be as far reaching as the eye could see.To get to the forbidden city from tiananmen you have to pass through something like 5 gates before you reach the ticket booth. Once again my expectations were completely off. Previously I'd seen alot of chinese movies set in ancient times with shots of 'outdoor sound stage' forbidden cities or digitally edited. It's much sm
aller than i expected! It was impressive, but after wandering around for a few hours all the surroundings started to look the same to me. You couldn't enter most of the important buildings either, with only viewing stations at the front. And these were always packed with pe
ople, once again jostling each other to get a pic and a look.Thought i'd be real good and got the english audio guide. Was a waste of time in the end though since i was half focused on taking pictures and wasn't paying attention to the guide. I thought the female audio guide's voice had a slight sultry tone to it, which i found pretty funny. Alot of the
commentary involved her pointing out features outside and within the buildings, and explaining some of the ceremonies that used to take place. I must admit i found this a bit boring, but the stories about the emperor's concubines was interesting. I didn't know they had a whole hierarchy and rankings for them! And then there was all the stories and intrigue about various empresses and concubines plotting against each other and killing off secret hiers to the throne. Facinating stuff. 
Ah nothing like letting your kids leave their mark in the forbidden city
They were just about closing up when i left the forbidden ci
ty, and was just in time to see the 
flag lowering ceremony in tiananmen. This and the flag raising in the morning is pretty popular with the people and tourists, so i could only get a view from afar. In the end there wasn't much to see, just a brigade of soldiers marching out and then back through the north gate with the flag.After this was feeling a bit peckish, so headed off to donghuamen night food market for dinner. There you can try all sorts of specialty snacks and small dishes originating from the various regions in china, and of c
ourse some of it is pretty exotic. You can get pretty much anything and everything on a stick. Hearts, kidneys, worms, all manner of insects, scorpions, bee cocoons, starfish, seahorses and of course no exotic food market is complete without the obligatory penis. In this case, sheep's penis. It's pretty popular amongst the tourists, and more specifically die-hard enthusiasts who'll give anything a go. When i arrived the first sight to greet me was a white girl bending over a 
trash bin retching out whatever had been in her mouth. *LOL* This unsettled me a little, but i still decided to try some fried crayfish...... and that's as exotic as it got for me.Ended up throwing most of it away because the inside of it tasted like prawns brains. yuck. what a waste of money. After that horrid experience went for something a little more safe and bought this thing that was like 2 fried eggs with french fries embedded through the middle. i thought, surely this isn't a chinese local delicacy. Looked more like something to co
me out of an american highway diner! they probably put this stuff here for the tourists who chicken out and can't find anything else to eat. Everything else i ate was pretty boring, lamb kebabs, hot and sour noodles, some jelly tofu cubes, a green jelly dessert and some fried cream cake. For anyone who wants to go there one day, theres actually 2 food streets around the wangfujing shopping mall. The bigger one donghuamen is at the north end of the wangfujing mall , and then theres another smaller one near the south end of the mall. Both branch off to the west. Each one sells different exotic snacks if you want to experience the whole range.
I never found out which of these is the sheep's penis.
U can get chicken asses on a stick here. Did u see any if those?? Bring a photo home of that for me. :)
ReplyDeletedude - fried crayfish is not exotic enough! sounds like you had a very colourful tasty dinner anyway though...but next time i expect you to try something a bit more daring al!
ReplyDelete