Dinner time!

Scorpions anyone? Shelley and I were walking down "snack street" in Beijing, which is a collection of booths that sell various food oddities. You can't miss the selection of grilled meats ranging from beef and lamb to, yes, scorpions. Look, I like my food with a bit of a bite to it, but THIS isn't what I had in mind...you know what I'm saying? These scorpion are skewered right before your eyes, the skewerer often being stung by the skeweree. Hungry yet? And to further entice customers, the scorpions are left on the skewer to squirm for a while. Hey, I'm all for fresh food, but this might go a bit too far for me. Don't fear, if you're not into the grilled scorpions, then how about a seahorse? Or perhaps a starfish? Or maybe you'd like some beatles or grasshoppers?

Needless to say, this was one of the more extreme things we came across in our culinary explorations. We generally found that if we put some thought into a choice for a restaurant, the entire family generally had some really great food for under $10. We were extremely gung ho about the Chinese food we were eating, but as is the case, after a while you start to get tired of eating only Chinese. But then the guilt factor sets in if you even think about wanting to eat, say, Italian food...because who comes to China to eat Italian? We got over that pretty quickly when we relied on McDonalds and granola bars to get us through some meals...a parents' best friend!

Click on the picture to see a small gallery of the stuff we saw on the snack street. Or the video below to see the squirming scorpions.