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With Beijing being the capital city that it is, there's an awesome number of embassies. All have PLA guards with guns outside. Guns are very rare in China; no civilians can have them legally, so as someone who is already gun-shy, seeing them in China freaks me out even more. Apparently, you're not supposed to take pictures of PLA guards or embassies, but that hasn't stopped me. One of my goals was to take a picture of every embassy in Beijing. I'm about 7% into that goal right now.
With Beijing being the capital city that it is, there's an awesome number of embassies. All have PLA guards with guns outside. Guns are very rare in China; no civilians can have them legally, so as someone who is already gun-shy, seeing them in China freaks me out even more. Apparently, you're not supposed to take pictures of PLA guards or embassies, but that hasn't stopped me. One of my goals was to take a picture of every embassy in Beijing. I'm about 7% into that goal right now.
Spain
Sweden
Morocco? Iraq? Iran? Ohio?
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The subway systems here in Beijing are fairly new for the most part, especially with the renovations for the Olympics in the past few years. They are magnetized, right? They arrive on time, the doors open and close with almost-deadly efficiency. People scramble on if its crowded. Some people say they have never seen young people give up their seats for older people. Not sure where they're looking, but I see it everytime an elderly person steps into the car. Seeing that always makes me smile.
They also play these inspirational Olympic videos of people struggling, failing, crying, cursing, struggling and working hard again, and winning the medal. I am such a sap for these types of emotional videos. When people cry? Either out of happiness or sadness? If I see it, I start tearing up immediately. I'm usually the person in the corner of the car with tears in my eyes as I'm watching that same damn video I've seen for the past two months now.
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I recently finished an article for Agenda Magazine on the weirdest food in Beijing. For a country known for its fondness of eating, you can find some pretty crazy stuff here. For research, I went to cooking classes, interviewed a chef, a teacher, and an owner, went and tried some of the crazy food myself, etc etc. If you're looking for cooking classes in BJ, talk to me.
"In other countries, people eat to live. In China, people live to eat."
There is a nightmarket here where you can find some of the most delicious food and some of the craziest. Most Chinese people don't eat the scorpions and sea horses; you usually see foreigners doing that. ;)
Some sort of water bug?
Little guy helping out with the spun sugar that they put on top of these donut holes
Star fish. Most people who ate these told me they are surprisingly good. They deep-fry them in oil, so they're crunchy...I dunno...
Scorpions, Meal Grubs, Silk Worms
Dry ice drinks with cool misty tops
Dungeoness crabs right?
Sea horses and some type of gecko/lizard. Geico after their profit-model goes bust.
Potstickers. Normal Ones. They looked sooo good.
A whole street of it!
Stirfriend Noodles aka Lo Mein. The things on skewers in front are so damn good. They poach them in a hot spicy sauce, then you put this sesame sauce over it. Def my favorite thing to eat this year.
Candied fresh fruit kebabs. Obsessed.
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What better way to end an evening than to stroll past the gates of heavenly peace.
zhong guo ren min wan sui!
zhong guo ren min wan sui!
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