Day One: Passport Fiasco, The Forbidden City, Panjiayuan Market, Temple of Heaven, Donghuamen Night Market.

Passport Fiasco: One of the girls that came to Beijing with me had been so busy with her internship this week that she didn't pack her bag until the night we left. Literally, like five minutes before we had to leave for our train. With the last minute packing she grabbed the wrong passport. She currently has two, one old and one new, and she grabbed the old one. It's fine for the train, but the hostel requires a current passport with the current Visa and residence permit information. Since she did not have that they did not let her check into the hostel. We tried every thing we could to reason with them and have one of our friends that stayed in Shanghai send a fax of the passport, but the copy was not good and the hostel would not accept it. She eventually had to find another place to stay. We were just worried that she might not be able to get on the plane to take us back to Shanghai. Fortunately, she was able to get on the flight back to Shanghai.

The Forbidden City: While we waited for the fax of Rayyan's passport to come in we headed out to the Forbidden City. This place is huge! The Emperor and his family were the only ones allowed to be on the palace grounds. Everyone else had to be personally invited by the Emperor. There were so many rooms and Halls. I can't imagine every being able to explore all of the palace in one day. It was so beautiful and had these amazing staircases.

Panjianyuan Market: It was an adventure just getting to the market. We had to ask so many different people for directions. They were all really nice and we got on the right buses to get us to the market. Sadly, the market was about to close by the time we arrived. So most of the stalls were closed up and deserted. There were still a few open that we could look at and Marta and Jessica were able to find a few items to purchase. It would have been really awesome to be there while the market was fully operational. There would have been so many stalls.

Temple of Heaven: The passport fiasco ended up taking up most of the morning. So by the time we headed out to the Panjiayuan Market and Temple of Heaven they were about to close. We were not able to actually see the Temple but were able to walk around the grounds. There were so many people just walking around and hanging out on the Temple grounds. There were trees everywhere and it was such a nice cool place. Many people were playing games, cards, and just walking around. There were even people singing in the corridors. They all looked like they were having such a great time and just enjoying the afternoon.

Donghuamen Night Market: This is one of the famous markets in Beijing. It happens every night. All these stalls are lined up on the street and each of them is just selling different types of street food. Of course, I had to try everything I could. I had seen this market on the T.V. several times and was really excited to actually go there.

This is what I ate:

1. Fried Silk Worm--interesting, but did not actually taste very good. After you bit through the outer body of the silk worm the inside had a weird texture and a weird taste.

2. Fried Scorpions--I wasn't brave enough to try to large scorpions, so I went with the little ones. They tasted like fried chicken. I thought it was pretty good.

3. Snake Skin--It was chewy and soft, but a little tougher than fat. It was a little like eating tendons or cartilage bones, just softer....gellier.

4. Snake Meat--I don't know if this is just the way the stall people flavored it but it tasted so salty. I couldn't really taste much else. I'll have to try it again.

The market was a lot of fun. It was fun to see all the different types of street food and try different things.