OH MY GOD! I ATE CRICKETS!

I had the morning free as I was not meeting the group until 6pm, so I went to the Lama temple. I walked down to Tiananmen East station and got on the metro. I got off at the Lama temple, which has its own station. There was some kind of holiday today so the temple was very crowded and there were people burning incense and bowing everywhere. There were big cauldrons of flames and people lighting giant incense sticks and saying prayers

It was very atmospheric and also very smoky. The temple itself was much more colourful than the others I've visited and had some interesting relics from the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

After the temple I got the metro back to Wangfujing and went to trusty old Pizza Hut for lunch. I then went back to the hotel to organize a shuttle to take myself and the group to the station on Wednesday so we can get our train to Mongolia.

I met my group of twelve at 6pm and did my pre departure meeting with no hassles. I did get lots of questions, some I wasn't quite prepared for either….but nothing I can't find out. After the meeting I took the group out for traditional Chinese food and some of the guests tried Beijing duck. After dinner I took a few people to the night markets, one of the passengers Matt wanted to actually try one of the bugs on sticks. I thought I would faint when I heard that.

We actually found some crickets for Matt to try and I took a picture of him eating them. When we got to the end of the markets, I only had Matt and Andy left with me and Matt couldn't eat the last two crickets, so he asked if either Andy or I wanted them. After procrastinating for a few minutes I decided I would try the crickets. I felt the first one go in, its legs touched the roof of my mouth and then the crunch when I brought my teeth down on its body. All in all it wasn't actually too bad….just crunchy with a salty taste. I ate both crickets.

Tomorrow I have an early start as I am taking the group (with a local guide) to the Great Wall of China.