Would You Like a Knife and Fork?

We slept in for a while this morning (to make up for staying up until 2 am at the Brickyard) and headed straight out for lunch. I took my dad to my favourite dumpline place in the back corner of a Wu-mart and we tried all kinds of different fillings. It's always fun to go there because you just point at what you want and they make them in front of you.

 

 

After lunch, we headed towards TianAnMen Square and met Pete on the way. No, you haven't heard of Pete before, so don't worry if you're lost! As you may know, my dad likes talking to strangers and Pete was a stranger who looked lost. So, we headed over and asked if he needed help finding something on his map. He told us he was lost and was trying to get to TianAnMen Square and the Forbidden City. We told him we were going that way and he could follow us if he wanted to. Well apparently he did want to, because he joined us in walking all the way there and then wouldn't leave. "Oh, you're going to walk around for 30 minutes or so. I'll join you," he said. "Were you thinking about going for lunch? I could come..." "No Peter. We ate already!" He also always seemed to have a trail of would-be tour guides trying to sell him tickets to acrobatics shows and great wall trips -- perhaps because he kept answering them!



We finally lost him when we wandered over to Qianmen and he went on to the Forbidden City. My mom wanted a few more knives so we had to go back to the knife store and the street is simply a cool restored hutong to visit. I got some more barley tea as well and we had some noodles for a late second lunch.



We walked back to the hostel for a quick nap before heading back out for dinner. The expats we took the Schoolbus with yesterday had recommended a place on Ghost Street for Beijing Duck so we decided to try that. Unfortunately we set out trying to find a bank on the way and had to go all the way back past the hostel when we got there because there apparently wasn't one on our route. Eventually we sat down and ordered our duck and a vegetable dish. They had 2 different kinds of duck so I figured we should ask the waitress what the difference was. Her answer: "The more expensive one is better." No duh!



She brought over an English speaking waiter, but his explanation wasn't much better. He did ask if we would like a knife and fork though... Eventually we followed their advice as they said it was more traditional. It wasn't quite like any duck I had had before, but it was quite tasty. Instead of hoisin sauce it came with plum sauce and we got fruit (cantaloupe, haw and pineapple) instead of raddish.

We grabbed some amazing smelling angel food cake-type street food on the way home for dessert and are now sitting in bed enjoying the warmth of our room!

As long as the weather stays nice, I think we're off to the Summer Palace tomorrow.