Day 2 Continued

We finished with the Forbidden City and took out to the city, looking for food. Megan and I spied a fruit stand, and drooled over all the delectable fruit. Half of which we have never before seen the likes of! There are tons of spooky looking fruit in China. Saimiya told us the names of a few, but some of them, even she did not know the names of. We bought some Dragon Eyes, a couple of apples, that were out of this world good, and something else I don't know what they call it. Here is a picture of the fruit stand. And afterwards, in our room, with a blurry close up of the Dragon Eyes.




The Dragon Eyes are in the lower right hand corner of the photo on the left. They look like brown suede covered grapes. Inside, they have a white, juicy flesh, with a black, hard seed, about 3/8" in diameter. Thus, the 'Dragon Eyes.' In the same picture, just above the Dragon Eyes, is a red, spiky sort of fruit, that we purchased as well, after a taste test from the vendor of the store. The skin is a tough leathery covering, with little spikes that would deter most hungry people and animals. But once you rip it off, you are rewarded with more juicy, white flesh, and yes, more hard, dark seeds, only not so large as the Dragon Eye seeds. Straight above the Dragon Eyes and the spike fruit are some pinkish apples. These are the best apples in the entire Universe. Better than any Washington state apple. Better than Pink Lady apples. They were light and crispy in texture; the flavor was a sweet heavenly concoction that only the angels would know about. Seriously, they were beyond good. My question is, if these are from Heaven, how is it that they are only grown in China, huh? Why not Southern California?


From our hotel room, we had a view of the Forbidden City. What a dichotomy our view presents. In the foreground, tenements. Just behind them, over the red roof tops of some apartment buildings, you can see the roofs of some of the palace buildings in the Forbidden City.




This photo zooms more on the temple on the top of the Fake Hill, (my label of the hill behind the Forbidden City, not the Chinese Name for it) which is behind the Forbidden City. You go from sheer poverty to utter opulence in less than a half a mile.



Here is a close up of the homes directly behind our hotel:



Tomorrow, the Great Wall, more Temples and a Tomb, and the Summer Palace.