China Daze

The next day I plan to go to the Silk and Pearl market. I take my time getting ready at the hostel, and the chinese family that owns the hostel invites me to eat lunch with them at the table. This was a particularly unique experience to be able to dine as the only westerner with a table of locals. We eat rice porridge and a few different strange food items. They ask me about my plans for my world tour and discuss China a bit.
After lunch I head off to the market. It is four layers of a market where all of the ladies shout at me to come buy something at their stand. "Lady which jacket do you want?" "Lady, come choose a scarf!" I spend the afternoon haggling over various pieces of jewelry for my charm necklace. I've decided to buy a charm from each country, and hang it on my necklace as a small token of my travels throughout the world.
Tonight Ellie (from the Great Wall) and I have decided to meet up and go to the famous outdoor food market. We meet up at 7:30 and head off to the market. The market is well known for its delectable cuisine of skewered tarantulas, geckos, snakes, slik worms, beetles, testicles, ovaries, crickets, sharks, starfish, seahorses, and scorpions both alive and dead. We go for the fruit skewers. At the end of the night we say our goodbyes, and agree to meet up in Shanghai later on in the week.
The next day I as I prepare to head off to Shanghai, the family that owns the hostel gives me a little gift and a huge farewell after walking me to the door. They hug me and wave goodbye. What a wonderful little place tucked away in residential Beijing.