Day 2: Exploring Beijing...

On our second day in Beijing, we were ready to explore a little bit more.

We had breakfast at the breakfast buffet at our restaurant.  We realized that they have plastic plates and cutlery if you request it.  This is better because yesterday Gabriel was carrying around the ceramic dishes over the tiled floor with one hand.

Eliana discovered that she liked you-tiao, which is a long, deep fried doughy thing that the Chinese eat for breakfast.  It's kind of like a donut except chewier.

The kids woke up super early that morning, so after breakfast, we hung out a little bit in the room and then had everyone take a morning nap.  Karina ended sleeping for 3 hours and would have slept for more if we hadn't woken her up.  Mommy and Daddy took a short nap as well.

Then we headed off to lunch. We were thinking of going to a Western restaurant such as Pizza Hut or KFC, but the kids requested to have the steamed buns again.  So off we went...  We were surprised the kids liked this so much and that they were not craving Western food yet.  A bonus to eating here is that it is much cheaper than the Western restaurants--you can get 3 buns for a little over 50 cents.  The whole meal costs us only $10, for all six of us.  During lunchtime, this place has a massive line of people ordering food.

Then we were off to the Silk Market where you can look at silk products and also buy souvenirs and trinkets.  We walked to the closest subway station.  Along the way, we passed by a lion statue and the girls stopped to rub its paws. They read in a book that this is good luck.

 The subway in Beijing is clean, fast, and cheap.

It took a little effort to figure out how to buy tickets, but we made it on.

At the market, there was a store filled with Hello Kitty stuff...the girls were in heaven.  However, the prices were outrageous so no, we did not buy a Hello Kitty knit cap for $30 and we didn't feel like bargaining with the store lady.

 We also saw toy guitars, which made Gabe very excited.  He asked if we could buy one.

By now it was late afternoon and we decided to head back by taxi.  We had to wait about 20 minutes for a taxi that was available.  Either we were not at the right spot or Beijing has a shortage of taxis during rush hour?

After regrouping in the hotel for a bit, we headed back out...  You can see our hotel in the background of the picture below.

We stopped by a touristy spot called the Food Market.  It is all these street vendors selling snacks and other things but one is not sure if it's safe to eat from these stalls.  It has the "weird" food that you see on TV, but also had some really tasty looking things.

 Here are some caterpillar pupae to eat...

Eliana got excited every time she saw one of these...they are fruit on a stick that are candied.  She read about these in a book and wanted to try them...

 These were little steamed buns that were in the shapes of various things.  They looked really life like.

Would sea stars be a little too crunchy?

 And we ate dinner at another local restaurant.  Karina gorged on the soup noodles we got for her.

We put the kids to bed at around 8pm, so they be well rested for the next day...when we visit the Great Wall!