Le weekend

More sightseeing this weekend -- this time it was the Temple of Heaven, now conveniently located along the new Line 5 subway (photos here). Saturday evening Niall, Brian and I went to the street food market at Wangfujing, where about 100 vendors have set up shop. There were more foreigners here, including an American couple pushing a stroller through the crowd with their three blond kids. They weren't moving very fast, however, because everyone wanted to stop and touch the white children.

The market had everything from meat sticks to fruit to dumplings, plus one or two stands with crickets, scorpions, centipedes, etc. For all we hear about Chinese people eating freaky things, however, the only people ordering these items were Westerners.

The Singapore Film Festival arrived in Beijing this weekend, so on Sunday we saw I Not Stupid Too (2006), Singapore's second highest-grossing film ever and the follow-up to 2002's I Not Stupid. It's about the communication gap between children and parents/teachers. The director (who also appeared in the film) spoke before and after, but the only thing I understood was that the movie would be shown at a different theater later in the week.

I saw this in China Daily last week and thought it was interesting.

China Fun Fact: Beijing is the 20th most expensive city in the world.