Today was our last full day in Beijing. We did not have tickets to an event, so we decided to do some other things that were on our list of "to do's," starting with shopping of course. Christina was in charge of the morning so that is what we did. We "had" to go back to the silk market and do some more buying/shopping/bartering. Many of the vendors are wearing lanyards with pins on them, so we can trade our pins with them. It is also a great place to meet people from all over the world since it is a popular tourist stop. You see many of the Olympic athletes and the coaches there if they are done with their competition.

After shopping we met our friend from the hostel and his girlfriend. Adam is the son of the woman who graduated from my high school with me. We have gotten together with him and Ting Ting on a number of occasions. It is great to travel around Beijing with them because they both know the city and they both speak the language. So, getting into a taxi and giving directions, is not a problem. Adam chats with the driver the whole time, while we three ride in the back and talk and take in the sights.

We had asked them to take us to lunch at an authentic Roast Duck restaurant. They did not let us down. We had the "soup to nuts" version of the lunch and we ate until we could eat no more. We paid for the meal and the total for the four of us was under $100 US dollars. The carver came to the table and carved the duck for us table side. I ordered a Sea Cucumber, which is a delicacy in Beijing. It is similar to Eel, but it has to be specially cooked in order to preserve the taste. It's a seafood that tastes similar to a cooked mushroom. I guess I'll try anything.

This brings me to the title of this post. Beijing fast food is really like the US, except in one specific area. I hope the pictures do it justice. It's a block long venue of what China refers to as fast food -- a collection of booths that sell fruit, fish, eels, squid, shrimp, silk worms, scorpions, etc. for the eating. They even have a soup that is sheep intestines (no, I did not try that). I did eat the fried squid and the fried scorpion. The squid was much the same as I have had in the states that we call Calamari.

Not much of and adventure for me, so Christina challenged me to try something that was out of the ordinary. I opted for the Scorpion. There were three of them on a stick, fried, and then handed to me. There were a lot of international people standing around watching me eat this. I did insist that Adam have one of the three. They were crunchy and tasted like the oil used to fry them. Actually, they were very tasty. When in Rome ...


We left the "fast food" and attended a performance of the Beijing Opera held in a tea house. A very interesting experience. A varied performance with some opera and other things added in.

All in all, this was a great ending to our trip here to Beijing. We are not done blogging and we hope that you will continue to check in with us. We want to share some of our Olympic "friends" with you -- people we have met over here. One of the benefits of coming to the games is that there is an instant connection with people. Everyone is here for the same reason. Soon we'll share some of those experiences with you.

Rick