The restaurant turned out to be another good choice. It had a dark wooden interior, with Chinese antiques and decor all around. The food was equally good. With so many good offerings, we again over-ordered, and had to struggle a bit to finish. The noodles were great, topped with a spicy bean sauce, and the other dishes were tasty as well.
After struggling to find a nearby subway station (we must have asked 3 people before we managed to locate it), we took a quick trip over to Tiananmen Square. Our intention was to quickly see this and then go over to the Forbidden City, but it was after 4:15pm, and these sites all close at 5pm. We decided instead to watch the flag-lowering ceremony, and endured a half hour of cold weather and pushy tourists to see it.
Daniel had finally managed to get his bearings, and decided to try again to find "Snack Street." This time he was successful. We wandered down this very sketchy street, amazed at all the offerings. Some of them were pretty creepy - scorpion, seahorse, starfish, even giant butterfly pupae, all served on skewers. We stopped one caucasian who had just finished some scorpion and butterfly and asked him how it was. Very good, he said. We didn't believe him, so we skipped all that and instead went for some grilled lamb, stinky tofu (yes, that's what it's called, and Daniel enjoys it. Me, not so much.), and a skewer of some sort of fruit dipped in a sugar coating that reminded me of candy apples.
Next on the agenda was the Chinese Opera. Daniel wanted me to experience this very traditional form of entertainment. The Liyuan Theatre in Beijing offers abbreviated versions of traditional operas that include English captioning, so it seemed like a logical choice. Another cab ride later (Daniel is getting very good at the taxis), and we were at the Liyuan. We purchased the cheap balcony seats and had the balcony nearly to ourselves, with a great view of the stage. The opera was, let's say, interesting. There were 3 acts. The first had to do with a traveler and his dealings with a sinister innkeeper, and included a scene where they two of them pantomimed searching for each other and fighting in the dark. It was mildy amusing, but went on and on for way too long. The second act was about a goddess scattering flowers. This was the first act to include singing, that shrill, nasal sound that most Americans would think of when Chinese opera is mentioned. The sound system was cranked so loud that the goddess's singing almost hurt our ears. At least her costume and makeup were beautiful. The third act was about a woman travelling to a magic mountain to collect immortal herbs to cure her dying husband. Some more shrill singing, but also a good, almost-acrobatic, fight scene between the women and the gods of the mountain. All in all, I am glad I saw it, but was also happy that it didn't last more than an hour.
One more cab ride later, and we were back at our hotel. It was after 9:30pm and we had not really had any dinner. Rather than hunting down another restaurant, Daniel wanted to check out a street market that is located right behind the hotel. It didn't seem to have a lot of interesting souvenirs, but we did spot a woman who had a tiny eatery set up. She had a variety of meats on small skewers that were cooking in a couple of vats of hot broth. Daniel wanted to give this a try, so we sat down on a couple of the tiny stools that surrounded the vats, and Daniel started talking with the cook about what we wanted. We ordered some noodles with a sesame sauce, which she also cooked in the broth. The skewers were self-serve, you just grabbed whatever you wanted. We ate quite a bit - meat balls, lamb, beef, tofu, mushrooms (I did pass on the pig's lungs) - and the total cost was less than 10 yuan (about $1.50). It was a great nighttime meal that I would never have attempted on my own.
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