Exploration

I have finally started going out sightseeing in China!  About time, right?  My first site was Tiananmen Square and I went with my friends Sara and Alex.  After three subways with two transfers, we finally got there.  The front of Tiananmen is hugeee.  The area where it's located is actually very quiet and it seems much more organized than other areas of Beijing.  The streets were much wider and there seemed to be a lot less chaos all over the place like there usually is. 

Before we got to Tiannamen around 1, we hadn't eaten.  Which was a really bad idea because there was no food anywhere nearby the square.  So we ended up walking 15 minutes to a very busy shopping area that my friend told us was known for street food.  So what ended up being a bad idea, actually turned out to be a good thing because of the area we found.  We saw and ate some pretty cool things!  Our first objective when we got to the area was finding food.  And we found a restaurant that is pretty well known for their steamed buns.  They were DELICIOUS.  I'm sure anything would have tasted good for how hungry I was, but they really were yummy.

Pork steamed buns

After our stomachs were happy from eating, we decided to walk around a bit.  We ran into this part of the shopping area where they had a whole bunch of street food.  This wasn't just normal street food you guys, it was weird, delicious, stinky, and everything else in between street food.  The weirdest thing I saw was scorpions on a stick but what really made it was the fact that they were still moving!  They hadn't all died yet so they were moving their pinchers and tails.  Very disturbing to say the least. However, they did have a lot of other street food that looked really yummy!  I even saw the infamous stinky tofu 0_0 which I still have not learned to appreciate.

Only in China would you find seahorses and live scorpions on a stick

After we headed back to Tiannamen square, it ended up being pretty late.  So in the end, we didn't actually get to go into the forbidden city :(  So I will have to report on it once we go back! 

Wednesday night's in Beijing mean open bar night! This means that guys and girls pay a flat fee of ~$7 and ~$3 respectively and get unlimited drinks for the night.  Crazy, right?? Sooo, this means lots of drinking and dancing!  I've actually come to like going to the clubs in Beijing.  There are always a lot of people and the music is always good! 

Today I went with a couple friends to an area in Beijing known as the 798 Art District.  It's essentially an area in the northeast of Beijing that has a bunch of cool shops and sculptures that different artists have created.  It has a different feel than the rest of Beijing because it was so calm and zen like in the district with calm music playing and no crazy hustle and bustle of the city that we usually experience.  Getting there was definitely an experience though.  After getting off the subway, we had to take a taxi to get to the art district.  However, because the district is a fairly short taxi ride away from the subway, many of the drivers refused to drive us!  It was really frustrating but we ended up taking what will probably be the most dangerous ride I will ever take in my life haha.  After being rejected by 3 taxis, a guy in a electric rickshaw pulled up and offered us a ride.  After hearing multiple warnings to never do things like this, we decided to go ahead with it and said yes.  With no side doors, seatbelts, or any other devices to keep us from flying out the window, lets just say that the ride to the district was definitely an experience to remember.  Especially since the driver we had was a maniac on the road.  While it was a fun experience, we will probably not be doing that again :P

View from the rickshaw

It's crazy how much I've done already in a week!  There is just an endless amount of things to see and do here.  I'll make sure to keep you all in the loop ;)