"Walkabout" - Atlas Sound Feat. Noah Lennox

The Night Market in Beijing (Just like the MN State Fair)

Earlier this month, I went on a short holiday to Beijing. It was both the 60th anniversary of the government and the fall harvest festival. Because of these two holidays Beijing was insane! It was packed full of people, the subway was constantly full of people and walking on the streets near Tienanmen Square was almost impossible, an ocean of people. We went to all the major sites (the Great Wall, the Summer Palace, the Forbidden City, Beihai Park, etc). We even saw part of a 'parade,' which was really a whole bunch of tanks rolling down the street, with crowds of people watching. It was a little eerie and unsettling. Everything we did was a lot of fun. We met some really cool people our hostel, the Chinese Box Courtyard (it was legit, and Joe the owner, was doubly so), who we saw the sites with. Some of our new found friends spoke a bit of Chinese, which made our lives much easier.

Of all the things we did and saw one of my favorite things was going to the Night Market. The Night Market is a long line of food carts serving all kinds of strange foods.

Pictured here are squid, snake, insect larva of some variety and deep fried prawns

Insects, organs, fruits, starfish, dumplings, and all kinds of other bizarre foods. I couldn't resist and felt that I had to try a few things. I started with hearty helping of meat dumplings and some fried dough with lots of sugar dumped on top, which I split with one of our new friends. After that I decided to move onto something more exotic: lamb kidneys. They came four to a stick and were roasted over coals right in front of you and they were seasoned with some salt, rosemary and basil. Delicious.

There they are. Lamb kidneys.

And they were good! The seasoning was delicious and the kidneys themselves were soft in texture and had a subtle iron flavor.

After kidneys it was time to move onto insects. There was a wide variety available and I had a hard time choosing.

Really big grasshoppers.

These scorpions looked a little scary.

These looked a little safer. They tasted like the crispy, extra skin on baked chicken.

After that we walked up and down the stalls just looking at all the strange things to eat. I stopped at a stand because they advertised...


The vendor knew some English and was goading everyone who walked by his stand, "DICK! DICK, DICK, DICK!" The majority of this man's English abilities were related to penis'. Awesome. I was looking at this trying to figure out if it was indeed sheep penis when a tall, blonde Australian walked up next to me and started making small talk. He began the conversation by asking if I was going to get the penis. After a series of penis/genitalia related jokes, and insinuating the other person was a raging homosexual with an appetite for cock, he told me he had to try it and would split it with me. I had to do it.

That's my Australian friend in the background. He was hilarious.

As far as the sheep penis went, it was chewy (really chewy). Aside from the spicy seasoning the vendor applied to it the organ was flavorless. Not the most delicious thing I ate that night, but it certainly was an experience. I washed down my eclectic dinner with some delicious Chinese beer on a street corner with my fellow travellers. All in all, the Night Market was awesome. I ate some weird stuff, saw some even weirder things and had a lot of fun doing it.