Day Two - Jingshan Park & Wangfujing St.

Day two's first stop was the Jingshan Park, which used to be part of the Forbidden City until the early 1900's when the walls were taken down and a road was put in, destroying several gates and buildings between the park and rear entrance of the palace. The hill in Jingshan Park was made with the earth removed to create the palace moat. It is well worth the climb on a clear day for spectacular views of the Forbidden City and Beijing.

On our way in, Juliana was in model mode! "Picture please" and then she would say, "1, 2, smile!" I guess she is so used to them by now.
Just inside the park, there was a lot of music, games and beautiful flowers to see... After the very long and steep climb up to the very top, the views were worth it. You could see all of the Forbidden city as well as the city from there. It was such a clear day too, so the view was for miles!

I found this park breathtaking, because there were groups of people of all ages, playing musical instruments, singing, playing games, cards, etc. This is what the locals do on their days off: go to a park and have a good time with their family and friends. It's just not something you can see in the United States. I got some good video of the singing with Juliana dancing in front of the crowd!

We didn't buy these, but of course we had to try them on her! This park was out first true experience with local entertainment and lots of pictures of our girl. She had a blast dancing, running around and enjoying the entire experience!

After lunch, we went to Wangfujing Street, Beijing's most famous shopping street. It was hard to restrain ourselves from wanting to buy everything we saw, especially on the small side alley streets! The vast majority of shops in China, especially the markets allow for bargaining and indeed they welcome it. We ended up getting all of our souvenirs and gifts a lot cheaper than the original price tag. This street was loaded with high end stores, as well as Chopsticks shops, restaurants, silk shops, tea houses, clothing stores, a Children's store, Beijing's largest book store and so much more. Here are a few pictures of the street...

We ended up making our way down one of the side streets and saw these candied fruits which were messy, but delicious! Jacob got the strawberry one and I wish I had ordered more before leaving.

As expected, Chinese people will never go hungry since they will eat anything! We made our way to Dong Hua Men, which is typically much busier at night. This street was loaded with so many different and in my opinion, disgusting foods. Things like a scorpion cost 50 yuan and Jacob just couldn't bring himself to try anything, as adventurous as he is. Some were cooked, others were still moving and there were all sorts of animals, insects and other things we simply couldn't identify. Here's a picture of some of the lovely choices...

Yup, there was sheep penis, centipedes, beetles...you name it, they had it!

After leaving the street, we made our way back to Wangfujing street for a proper dinner and then headed back to the hotel after another long day!