So the dinner actually happened the night before,but I was able to get a good picture of the people I was with and our food so I thought I would included it in this post.
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| Some of the student from my study abroad group eating out at a Halal restaurant close to our hotel |
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| Halal dinner! Skewered meat and spicy beef noodle bowl! |
The Halal restaurants where we had wonderful food on a number of occasions. Lots of different types of skewered meat, HUGE bowls of spicy noodle soup and so much more! It was so warm you wanted to sit outside. This night in particular was exceptionally pleasant. It was in the 90's with slight humidity in the air. But, it didn't matter because we had fun conversation and a cool breeze pushing the sounds and smells of the city and crowds around us. This dinner felt more like a dream than anything else, this might have been when I fell in love with China.
Night Markets!
OK, this was just like what you see on TV on the travel or food channels! It was everything and more than I could ever ask for. One of our Chinese students found this and took us, and I am so thankful he did. Everything was geared for tourist which was perfect for us so early in our adventure! The venders not only spoke Chinese and English, but a number of other languages like Spanish, French, German etc. Everyone was friendly and excited about what was going on. Every booth you stopped at seemed to be putting on a new show for you to see. Some were drama's others were action plays!!!
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| Cute Desserts! |
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| Oh WOW! A real snack street! |
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| Enjoying the sights with another student. Of those in my group only 3 of us attempted to eat anything wild, we were two of them! |
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| Yep! That's me eating a deep fried scorpion! It totally freaked me out and took me several minutes to actually do it. |
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| Surprisingly, it didn't taste bad. Kind of like a salty potato chip, very crunchy too! I ended up eating 2 that night! |
After everyone had their fill of weird food we walked around the corner to one of the most beautiful shopping streets I have ever been too! It looked like downtown New York City! Lots of high end stores and bright lights. There are some historical facts about Wangfujing that are worth mentioning as well. During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) 10 princes resided on (at the time) "Wangfu" street. However, during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) a sweet well was discovered and the street name was changed to Wangfujing literally meaning "princely residence" "well." The street has always attracted a lot of venders making it a popular street market dating back to the Ming Dynasty. In 1999 the street was closed to through traffic making it an excellent pedestrian area. The street boast around 280 Beijing brand stores as well as a number of high end retail stores.
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| This manhole cover shows the location of the fresh "sweet" water well that part of the street name derives from |
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| Roomies! |
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| Another student and myself enjoying the bright lights |
We eventually found ourselves at another famous hutong night market called Wangfujing street food and night market around the corner from the beautiful shopping area on the pedestrian street. We got to experience haggling/bartering at its finest, see more souvenir shops than should be legal in one area...and we had a marvelous time!!
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| Here I am in front of the paifang (archway gate) to the Wangfujing hutong night market |
LOCATIONS and LINKS
Wangfujing snack street and night market
Wangfujing Pedestrian Street 王府井小吃街
Dongcheng District
Beijing, China
(Wangfujing Pedestrian Street
with 2 snack/night markets)
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