I got some kind of blossom-looking thing that the guy seemed to say was crab, but unless it was sex organs of a crab, it seems rather squishy to me. I couldn't eat it all after it was squishy and slightly banana-like in the middle. It weirded me out. Though I did try it! And then I had some kind of shrimp-like bug thing, grilled. I found it hard to get at the meat, but the insides were tasty. I got a lot of strange looks carrying them around on that stick. Then I got some dumplings (seemed like 3 veg and 3 mystery meat) and a fried food rollup of some sort. Don't know what meat was in it, but it had veggies and was wrapped.
After my last post I hopped in a taxi and went over to the Temple of Heaven. I was almost swayed by my concierge suggesting the subway, but I'm just too tired to try and figure out the equivalent of inbound/outbound on multiple lines in Chinese right now. I am sooooooo glad I went to that park. The Temple of Heaven was the most beautiful place I have been. The gardens, even in the winter, were so amazingly peacful and calm. I just felt warm from the inside. See, totally peaceful:
There were also many beautiful structures and I have tons more photos (do I ever!), but mainly I just think I want to spend more time there when I come back to Beijing. I really didn't want to leave, it was so pleasant.
But leave I did, and since there was still time in the day, I went over to the Forbidden City to actually go inside. I went in the first gate, and it was big. Then I went through the second gates, and it was flipping huge.
Then I went past another 5 or 6 sets of buildings/gates and realized just how big that city is. It's so amazingly huge. And I have a million pictures, because I kept being surprised at how much more there was to photograph. My favorite spot was the garden. Again, a peaceful place in the middle of accosting-sales-on-the-street. Maybe next time I come to Beijing I'll just go to gardens. They make me so happy.
In both places, they had these Ming style triple-level stairways up to the buildings with these big white markers on them. I'm obsessed with these now, in addition to roofs and roof corners. I had so much fun trying to get cool shots of them. Don't know if I succeeded, but some of them are pretty cool.
And that was several hours of time. It was a full day, but a good one. After that running around, I definitely earned the right to sit in my hotel room and not feel bad about it. I putzed around for a while and took a nap, and rested my weary ankles (which are really sore) before going to the night market. Hopefully I can get to sleep now... Need to rest up for the Great Wall tomorrow!
Things of note:
- Thanks, Dad, for taking me hunting. After peeing in corn fields and edge rows, the squat toilets aren't a big deal.
- One of the night market guys told me I'm beautiful, and I think he was talking particularly about the fact that my skin is so pale. I forgot that was a thing... Maybe that has contributed to the looks I'm getting! I am quite alabaster...
- The service people are so very nice. The swarm of leeches who come at you when you leave one of these big monuments, either to sell you something, or to try to get you in their unmetered taxi or pedicab, are so awful that I almost turned around and hissed at them leaving the Forbidden City. I'm so glad the section of the wall I'm going to is supposed to be lighter than the others for this.
- At one point today I was watching really bad kung fu tv that was in Chinese, but it was still dubbed. Ha! Oh, I had many moments in both Temple of Heaven and Forbidden City that made me visualize a kung fu movie, with wire fu or not. Good stuff!
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