Night Market

The same day we journeyed to the Great Wall, we came back to Beijing.  We wanted a light dinner, so we decided to take a taxi to the Beijing Night Market.  Though touristey, it was fantastic.  Basically it is an entire block of stalls of food of the kind they have at fisherman's wharf where you can buy it and eat it on the spot.  The main difference is that here the vendors are quite a bit more aggressive and try to "HELLO" you into taking their particular brand of fried scorpion, as opposed to the other guy's.  We didn't order anything too wild, but I think we tried about 10 different things.  (pot stickers, buns, squid, banana fritters, noodles).    Street food is awesome.

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On a side note, I'm used to seeing hobos in San Francisco.  At the night market, though, we were both really saddened by this incredibly cute but dirty little girl (maybe 3 or 4 years old).  She had ribbons in her hair and was all swaddled up in what seems to be the common chinese little kid winter jumpsuit.  She was with her dad (grandfather?) picking up food that tourists at the market had thrown into the trashcans.  We've seen poor people before (parts of mexico), but I don't think I at least have ever seen so directly the wealth of tourists and Beijing residents at the market contrasted with the poverty and lack of opportunity for a little kid like that.  I hope she'll end up going to school when she gets older.