Beijing - Part 3: The Temple of Heaven, Beijing Opera and Random Weird Food!

The final place we explored for awhile was the Temple of Heaven. It's grounds are even larger than those of the Summer Palace! It had freshly snowed the day before so there was still some kicking around by the time we made our way there. Here's one of the main gates.....

And here's a snowy view of Qinian Dian - Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests....

Once inside the grounds there were again many more buildings with the same type of architecture and decoration as the Summer Palace and the Forbidden City.

This is the view from on top of the Round Altar where they annually used to sacrifice for the winter solstice. Apparently, it is a popular spot for a 'touristy" pic so we had to wait in line for 5 minutes just to snap a quick pic!

I laughed at the guards' way of "snow removal"......a bunch of guys shoveling the snow into a pile, then shoveling it onto a large piece of canvas and then literally running it across the courtyard to take it down the steps. I have to admit, it did work well!

And here's a snowman!!!! LOL

We had an opportunity to attend the Beijing Opera one night. It was a short show but the costuming was beautiful and the style of singing extremely unique! I was glad we got to go! :)

Some of the weird and random types of food we came across........first night in Shanghai we were STARVING and as no one at the restaurant spoke ANY English, we ordered from the menu by pointing to pictures. We knew that we ordered a chicken and chilies dish and when it came to the table, it looked amazing! It tasted amazing too, except there were a lot of these little bones in the chicken chunks......came to find out after we had devoured the entire plate of food, that we had just dined on chicken's feet. I'm not going to lie, they were really tasty, but after finding out what it actually was, I changed my mind. Here's what they looked like - would you have guessed that's what they were?

This dish, on the other hand was delicious! Apparently smoked pork (aka - bacon) and dragonbean. I have never seen this vegetable before, but I love it!! :)

And seeing as we can't get any real pork in Kuwait, we ordered another pork dish - pork in brown sauce.........it was pretty good too! :)

My first Starbuck's coffee in China!!! :)

After accidentally eating chicken's feet and also pig intestines..........don't ask........we decided to hit up McDonald's a few times. LOL

Red Bean Pie???? Weird, but good!

Also, instead of a side of fries, they have corn!!! It was really good, as was the Pineapple Pie! :)

We ate a really good dumpling restaurant in Xi'an.......tried over 20 different kinds of dumplings!

Us eating the famous dish - Peking Duck!

And onto the weirdest food...........Bill was determined to try "scorpion on a stick" so we hunted and hunted and finally found a big one!

He said it tasted like he was eating shells..............LOL! We found some much smaller ones later, but couldn't convince him to try those.....LOL! :) Check out the seahorses........and there are giant grubs on sticks, squid, and goodness knows what in the next picture!

This lady was awesome at making these crepe-like rolls with egg, dried pork and spring onions inside. Her tiny shop was hopping! They had a very different taste, but really good and hot first thing on a wet, cold morning

And then we saw these in one of the grocery stores and wondered what exactly you would use these for food-wise.......maybe for flavor in soup?

Would I go back? DEFINITELY, but in the summer months when it is much warmer and the landscape is green. It was beautiful in winter, so I can only imagine how much more beautiful it would be in the summer months! And 5 blog posts later, that's it for my Grand Adventure in China! :)