Day 4 – Beijing – A Foodie Adventure aka WE ATE SCORPIONS!

Today was a magnificent day. We got a chance to sleep in and enjoy a leisurely breakfast since we were on our own. Our hotel has a buffet with both western and Chinese foods. Glenn and I both tend to get the Chinese foods so breakfast is filled with dumpling soup, fried vegetables, fried rice, fruit, steamed buns, and sometimes a little cheese. It’s a great spread. After breakfast we headed up to the Dong Cheng district – home of the Hutongs. Hutongs are historic alleyways that the Chinese government has decided to preserve and develop to make into a tourist attraction. We were on a quest to find a restaurant we read about. All we knew was that it was down an alleyway near the Nanluoguxian alleyway and we would walk 150 yards into the alleyway and see a red lantern. When you see the red lantern, turn left and then you will the restaurant. We found the first alleyway – Nanluoguziang pretty easily. It is a bustling area filled with shops, bars and restaurants. We found some great souvenirs and had a lot of fun walking around. I can’t tell you how many alleys we went down in search of a red lantern! We reached the end of the alley – no restaurants - so we headed to the left and went down a couple alleys that way. No luck. We headed to the right and one the 3rd alley we struck gold. It only took an hour and a half of looking.

The restaurant, Dali Courtyard Restaurant was amazing. It’s a set menu. The chef goes to the market in the morning, picks what he likes and then cooks it. We had 7 courses: mint with tofu skin, dried mushroom salad, stir fry mushroom, whole baked fish, shrimp with asparagus, mixed greens, and chicken wings. It was SO good. Glenn’s favorite was the tofu skin and mint salad. My favorite was the baked fish. All that food plus two cocktails each totaled a stunningly low US$50.
After that great lunch, we grabbed a taxi and headed to Dragonfly spa near the Forbidden City. It is a beautiful spa. I got an hour long Oriental Foot massage for US$20 and Glenn got an hour long massage for US$35. It was awesome! Glenn said it was the best massage he had ever had. After our massages, we headed to Emperor Hotel. This was the hotel we were looking for on Friday and the bar was closed to a private party. Well, this time it was open. It was so nice. Definitely a chic hotel. The view was great. The lychee martini was fantastic.

It was so luxurious! After drinks, we headed to meet our tour guide for our night market tour. The meeting point was outside a bookstore so we browsed a little and bought some more souvenirs. Jenny our tour guide met us. She was really nice. She led us to the food stalls.

It was so much fun. While we were walking, a young boy came up and struck up a conversation. At first, I thought it was another scam, but then he started asking all kinds of questions like What is your job? What is your favorite place in Beijing? Our tour guide went over to talk to his father. It turns out he was in Beijing from Southern China near the Canton region for an English competition. His father had brought him to the night market area with the hope of finding some foreigners to practice his English. Once we found this out, we chatted with him some more then wished him luck. His English was very good. Back on the tour, we tried a ton of street food: squid balls, vegetarian spring rolls made with corn wrappers, pancakes with purple rice, spring rolls made from tofu skin, pan fried dumplings, lamb skewers, banana fried dough, Chinese hamburger and scorpions – yes scorpions! Glenn and I both tried them.

They just taste like something fried. The scorpion was Glenn’s favorite street food. My favorite was the purple rice pancake. The tour cost US$100. It was definitely way overpriced. We had booked this tour before we left and we only had our optional tours from our tour package for comparison. Now that we’ve been here, we have learned you could have hired a personal guide for two whole days for that amount. Live, learn. We are definitely glad we had a guide though because the night market was huge, crowded and tons of food options so it was good to have someone steering.

Glenn and I both are so glad we came in the winter. The weather has been cold, but not terrible. The cost savings is significant. The biggest advantage is the lack of crowds. Tonight at the night market, I would say it was relatively crowded. However, our guide said that it was not crowded at all. In the warmer months, it is so crowded that you just move with the crowd and there are people on all sides touching you. Glad we avoided that. Tonight we say goodbye to Beijing. We just finally got the hang of the city, the metro and could find our way around easily. We head to Xi’an tomorrow for a trip to see the terra cotta soldiers and some dumplings!