Another Day of Rest

After our marathon tours Saturday and Sunday we decided Monday would be a day of rest. We would just walk around the neighborhood and see what we would see. No temples, no palaces. Perfect.

We walked from the hotel down our little hutong,

turned left at the church and there we were. On the street again.

I never got used to that dramatic transition.

As we walked along the street we came to another little hutong-like entrance. We made that turn, and a whole world opened up.

It was a sort of Chinatown in a Chinese town! I'm here to tell you that Chinatown in China is a whole different experience. Take, for example, these live scorpions on a stick. I wish I had a movie so you could see them wriggle. I presume they got cooked before being eaten.

You really need a better view. Cute, no?

The scorpions weren't the only thing. There were all sorts of cooked bugs.

Here's closeup of the cooked critters.

I must admit, I disappointed myself. I had talked from time to time during the trip about eating a bug or two if I had the chance. Well, I had the chance, and I passed. I guess I would need to be a lot hungrier, and probably at least a bit tipsy as well, to go the bug route. Another day perhaps. We kept walking along. Remember, this is right off the huge, modern street we'd just been on.

These fellows were making candy by banging on nuts, and some other "mystery" ingredients, with huge mallets. The candy was pretty good!

And this fellow had a clever routine to get people to buy hats from him.

Seafood anyone?

These looked really good, but tasted as though they had used cooking oil from the neighboring fish seller.

Eventually we came to the end,

and just that quickly we were back in the modern world.

On our way back to the hotel we walked past some whimsical street sculpture.

As we came to the corner of our hutong we saw a bride and groom being photographed in front of the church, one last bit of loveliness in a perfectly lovely day.

One more day in Beijing and then -- home.