Accidental Restaurant

One thing everyone says you have to do in Beijing is trying the Beijing roast duck. So Alison asked at the hotel desk about restaurants, saying we didn't want to go to the most famous giant tour bus-destination roast duck place, and they kindly gave her another restaurant name.

After about an hour in a "luxury cab" (there are two classes of taxis in Beijing, tiny ones that are cheaper, and bigger ones that are significantly more expensive), and only only traffic accident in China (a minor fender-not-even-bender that was most alarming only because our driver and the guy he rear-ended stood around in traffic for a few minutes discussing it), we finally go to the restaurant.

It was clearly also a big tourist destination (several buses were parked outside), but we quickly got a table and looked at the menu (which had English, which is a much more common thing in Beijing than in Shanghai), and realized while this place was not the giant tourist roast duck place we were trying to avoid, it was also not any sort of roast duck place - it was a Yannan region restaurant that served ants and scorpions, among other things. We managed to order several very nice non-insect-based dishes, and there was even a floor show!

It kept Cielo very happy and we were able to relax a little and enjoy the food. After the show, we ran into some of the dancers on the way out, and one of them gave Cielo one of her decorative necklaces. The next night, we went to the giant tourist roast duck places, but didn't take any pictures.