Okay Bea, just for you I convinced Rachel to be a little adventurous on our last night in Beijing.  We went to the Night Market for dinner last night.  It's official name is the Wang Fushing Street Market, but all the locals affectionately call it the "night market" because it's only open from 5:00-10:00 pm every night.  If you watched any coverage of the Olympics then you saw some of the fascinating stuff they have for sale here.  I have to say that at first I was a little intrigued, but after a few minutes of looking and smelling the "exotic" foods I couldn't handle any more.  We couldn't even make ourselves buy the chicken and rice from a booth here.  We had to go down the street to KFC for dinner.  After looking at the pictures we took you will totally understand!  If you have a weak stomach you may not want to see the pictures.  Fair warning!  :)

The view from here doesn't look so bad does it?  It's not until you get closer and see what's REALLY cooking that you start to get a little squeamish......

For appetizers, from top left to right, how about honey bees, centipedes, starfish and locusts?  Not quite your thing?  How about.......

Scorpions?  There's a variety for your eating pleasure - small ones, big ones, black ones, gold ones....take your pick!   Hmmm.....still not quite your thing?  Well, hold on - we have more!  

The octopus doesn't look too bad -except for the slimy tentacles on the end!  

These hairy little things are sea urchin, which are considered quite a delicacy........yummy!

How about some sea horse instead?  

And I don't even know what this is.....it looks like some worm of some kind.  Use your imagination!  :)  

Just so you wouldn't think I was completely gutless, I did try one thing from the market!  It looked fairly safe.   Fried bananas - tasted like fritters covered in sugar.....not so bad!!  HA!  So there Bea!  :)