weird food day

the first weird thing tht happened today is that we had our first experience being ripped off.
breakfast of tea eggs, congee, wonton soup, and steamed dumpings at a bare-bones restaurant should have cost about $5 cost us about $20....and when you have not a word of the language, it is hard to argue. oh well,averaged in with all our other cheap meals makes it ok, but still burns. Then we went to a fancy grocery store, and apentless than that for 3 bags of groceries so we can pack lunch for our trip to th great wall tomorrow. then we grabbed cab togo to the Temple of Heaven park, a series of beautiful temples in a large park. Cab ride gettng there was another adventure....we have a map with all the tourist sites in chinese, but somehow, maps seemto be culturally unfamiliar & confusing.

Our day started to get better when awomanaddressed us in the park andinvited us to see some art. we were suspicious--felt lik a time-share pitch--but turned out to be gorgous, inexpensive art. we bought three pieces--2 for our dining room, and one for our bedroom or my office.

Next, headed to the famous "snack street" that you may have seen on the news. Stalls lined up selling strange food on sticks: seahorses, bees, pupee, sme kind of testes, etc. We tried scorpians (tasted like popcorn), crabs (shell & all), centipede, bbq eel, and some yummy candied fruit,among other thins. add that to some of the other interesting food adam's tried here: sea cucumbers, sheep stomach stew, ox face meet (yesterday's weird experience). Hock schew, they say here--good eats!

After snacking quite a lot, we walked down a closed pedestian shopping street -- lots of beijingers and foreigners out on a nice night enjoying the end-of-olympics festive mood.Little bous with olympic rings shaved on their heads, pairs of orange-clad geisha-types. EVERYone swarming the official souvenier stores (why weren't they selling all this stuff at the olympic venues? They're still new to capitalism, but catching up fast. Customer service is going to take a little longer!) More drama getting a cab home, but the rid took us past Tiennaman square, where all the buildings were outlined with lights and barricades set up for what looks like a HUGE end of olympics party tomorrow night. Looks a lot like Chairman Mao will be supervising the start of 'the Chinese century" from his perch over Tienamon Square.