Day 3 - Beijing (evening out)

We got back late this afternoon and had time to venture out. Our guide gave us the following directions and advice: "exit your hotel, turn right, after 2 traffic lights - there will be a pedestrian mall. There are many restaurants. All are good. Chose a clean one."

With those words of wisdom, we exited the hotel and turned right!

The pedestrian mall was very interesting. Every high end, luxury store that you could think of was represented. The only evident restaurant was KFC. I don't eat there at home, I most definitely was not going there in China! We continued down the street until we came upon a bazaar - like alley. There we saw the famous scorpions on a stick! Bennett took one look and said "I don't like to eat bugs!". We did seem some German guys indulging. Wonder how they are going to feel in the morning?

We decided to go into the shopping mall to see what type of restaurants were inside. This was no ordinary shopping mall! 6 stories of shops and restaurants. Like South Park Mall on steriods! We took a quick look at the directory and Bennett noticed the golden arches. "I want french fries" was the next thing he said. Really - there are so many other choices.. How about noodles? Nope, fries.. Mark convinced me to go on up and check it out.. So up to the 2nd floor we went.. Yup - looks exactly like a McDonalds back home except the menu is in Chinese. Mark was disappointed as he had read they are supposed to have some local food choices in addition to the regular menu... Bennett was happy with the paper crown and we convinced him that we would find some other place to eat..

Up to the 5th floor - we checked out one menu of a hot pot restaurant, but didn't think Bennett would sit for it. Across the way was a dumpling restaurant. Menu looked good and it was clean! We ordered rice and dumplings. Dinner was awesome and very inexpensive! I think Bennett ate almost the entire serving of rice himself. Mark uttered the "I-C-E" word when I vetoed ordering more food after Bennett wouldn't let us close to the rice. Around the corner was a Dairy Queen - that fit the bill and Mark and Bennett shared a blizzard.

Early morning tommorow as we head to Nanjing. We meet April Xueyuan on Monday!!