Friday
evening Tom and I took a stroll along Wangfujing Street. A long time ago in the
Ming Dynasty Wangfujig was a center for
commercial activities. Then in the Qing
Dynasty it was home to ten princess. Wang
Fu means princely residence. Jing means
well, and there was or is a well nearby. This street is within walking distance
of the Forbidden City and right outside our door. Our apartment is in the Oriental Plaza, which
is at the south end of Wangfujing Street.
Wangfujing
is a famous pedestrian street in Beijing, and despite its antiquity it is made
to order for the tourist crowd. This
fact is evidenced by the fact that a short block from the main thoroughfare is
a street crowded with large tourist buses.
The street is home to shoemakers, hatmakers, tea shops, the Beijing
Foreign Language Bookstore and the New China Woman and Children Department
Store which Madame Sun Yat-sen helped establish. Of course there are malls along with the
ubiquitous tourist chop stick shop, Chinese medicine shop and other small shops
with hawkers out front inviting the tourist downstairs for better bargains. In my experience, better bargains mean rat’s
nests that are difficult to escape. The
best part of our walk was along the snack streets off from Wangfujing. The street food is rather amazing, if not
nauseating. There are sticks full of
sweet, candied hawthorn apples, and on to pieces and parts that I couldn’t
identify... testicles are a favorite,
but I’m not sure from what poor creature they are snatched… If you’ve watch some of the bizarre travel
food shows you know what is coming next in this narrative: bugs on sticks, bugs just waiting to be
bought and fried in hot oil to the delight of purchaser’s palate. These scorpions and cockroaches are still alive
and wriggling; yes, the thought alone
makes me gage. Tom took pictures and has a tame video of the wriggling,
look to the attached link, if you dare.
My farsightedness helps my brain not process
too much of this detailed information!
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