Silkworms, scorpions, and seahorses, oh my!

I have seen the route of food poisoning, and it lies in an alley of new food stalls in Beijing.  There is a big shopping area near Tianamen Square and the Forbidden City that has exploded in the year since I was last here.  The main throughfare is blocked off to auto traffic and is a big wide street lined with shopping malls and high end foreign brands.  There are at least three enormous stores selling all things Olympic kitsch you could ever ask for.  There seems to be an insatiable hunger for trinkets, stuffed animals, semi-precious stone encrusted figurines, laser etched gold figures, and even a little keychain with one of the Olympic characters holding a gun.  Still trying to figure that one out - marksmanship, perhaps?  Anyway, down one alley that didn't exist last year, there are all of these new food stalls with rancid looking meat on sticks and bugs.  Lots of bugs.  Clearly a tourist attraction.  Not sure what the appeal of bugs in big tourist sites is, but okay.  Then behind the food stalls is another alley of cheap souvenirs.  They're all the same.  This is the third time in three years that I've been to China, and it seems that every town everywhere has the same Chairman Mao alarm clocks, decal coated tea mugs, Chinese emperor chess sets, jade bracelets, etc, etc. There is nothing left for me to buy.  Except for a cool shiny beetle encased in a plastic pendant.  The woman in the shop wooed me with "Hello Laydeeee.  Amber. Real." Hehehe.  

    I stopped in the Foreign Language bookstore even though I'm carry a small library of great epics of literature.  I can never pass up a bookstore.  This one had two full walls of every Rough Guide and Lonely Planet known to man.  For instance, did you know that the Rough Guides has published a volume each on the Brain and on Genes and Cloning?  No?  Me neither.  Those are places I'd like to visit.  Oh wait, done that :)  But standing there seeing all of those books describing all of the places I have yet to see made my heart to a funny little twist.  I've decided that I like this life I have, but if I could come back and do it all again, I'd want just enough  money to rough it in all the cool places around the world.  Don't need to be a kajillionaire, but it would be pretty nifty to not have to work and just go live.  Everywhere.  And write about it all for any of the armchair travelers out there to come along.  Oh well...

   So some of you might remember last year when I wrote about the vast conspiracy to keep me from ever visiting any of the pickled communist dictators of the world.  Well, it continues.  Good news is that Chairman Mao is back from his "Russian vacation", but his mausoleum is only open Tuesday through Sunday.  And guess what today is.  Yup, Monday.  Oh well, I guess there's always when we come back.  I wandered around Tianamen Square a bit and then up the avenue that runs alongside the Forbidden City.  It was a long walk, even for my magic traveling shoes, and my dogs are barking. I've also discovered that all of Beijing is currently nasally challenged by a battle with some little white fluffy tree bits that are permeating the air.  The odd thing is that I can't seem to *find* the trees they're coming from, but it's everywhere, and it gets up your nose really easily.  And speaking of trees - I saw a tree getting an IV drip.  No joke.  There was a bottle hanging with some clear liquid and a drip line with a needle jammed into the bark.  Poor tree.  I hope it feels better soon...