Hutongs!

A happier post!
On Saturday five of the interns went to visit a hutong. Hutongs are the historic sections of China (think if you went to Rome and went to see an historic neighborhood, same idea). Hutongs are small streets in which people live and work. Before 1950 most of Beijing was composed of these hutongs, however once the Communists came to power they began giant construction projects to update the city. With good reason: most of the hutongs were the same as they had been all the way back to the middle ages, and some modernization is good.
So we went down a hutong and did some shopping. It was alot of fun, all the shops were individually owned- no Gap here! So I bought some presents for people! :) and we had an awesome lunch at a Chinese restaraunt.
After lunch we contiuned on to Wangfujing which is Beijing's answer to New York's Time Square. Lots more shopping! We visited an Olympics Store which was really great and bought some presents there as well. I also talked everyone into going into a bookstore which was exciting until I realized that the English selection was limited... (see the conclusion of the last post for my feelings on this matter). The English section consisted of current books about China, American business books (alot of which had titles like: "How to beat out China!"), and American classics (like Mark Twain and all his friends). So I bought three classics for 60 yuan = 10 bucks for 3 books. So that was fairly exciting despite the lack of choices.
After that we went to the outdoor food market which most people have seen in pictures - think, pictures of people eating scorpions. It was so much fun! And I bought some corn - never thought I'd be excited about corn!!! After that (and lots of pics! to come soon) dinner time and then some carmelized grapes at the market (also delicious!).
So while Sunday in Beijing was a bust, Saturday was fun and without any hitches! :D