Wafujing Street and Chinese Food

I was glad for the recommendation from Jacky Lee to visit Wafujing Street at night. It is a pedestrian shopping area and when lit up at night, it reminds me of Times Square

This logo reminded me of somewhat of the Nike swoosh, but with more of a check mark effect

They had a Foreign Language Bookstore where I was able to buy books in English- it was a different feeling to be the foreign language. I actually only bought 1 book about Beijing. For those of you who know me, I generally like to buy a book at most tourist attractions that I go to. However, I didn't find any that I liked at the sites, but I did manage to find one at this bookstore that encompassed most of the sites, at least briefly.

There was also a very extensive underground shopping center underneath the above ground pedestrian mall. It looked like your typical mall but with a Chinese aspects like this giant bull.

The most fascinating part of Wafujing area is the open food stalls. They literally sell everything on a stick- ranging from candied apples to chicken to STARFISH and SCORPIONS.

You can't see this one very well but they also had seahorses on a stick. I'm a "selective eater" (a better phrase than picky) here in the U.S. and I am one of those American tourists who won't even try this, but there was just no way. I'm glad that they enjoy them.

William and I had been to several Chinese restaurants here in Mountain View and we really did not like them at all. They were popular restaurants but I just didn't think it was very good. But I then went to Beijing, to two fine dining establishments (first class, grade A) and I realized that they tasted exactly the same as the places in Mountain View. Turns out that I just don't like authentic Chinese food- I only like the Americanized version of it. After finding this out, I didn't seek out any more restaurants to eat at. The other problem was that many of the menus were not in English so I had no idea what I would have been eating. I was just glad that I had brought snacks from the U.S. I also stopped off at the Super WalMart where I bought some chips and other Americanized treats. I wasn't a very good as appreciating the local cuisine. I am so glad that one thing is found around the world- Diet Coke. It has saved me countless times from drinking the water and just a familiar taste of home. It is also fairly easy to recognize, even with Chinese characters.