Wangfujing Snack Street & the Night Market

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On Donghua Men Daije as you walk towards the Forbidden City you will see a long row of vendors dressed in white selling a variety of food in their shiny red carts. This is the Night Market. Unlike other night markets in Asia, this one only sells food. Winter fare would be much different from summer fare. On our first night there we decided to brave the cold and check it out. We headed out around 7ish and found the vendors were starting to pack up. The night was bitterly cold so there weren’t many people around the stalls.

Unlike Hong Kong, the snacks consisted of a lot of insects and bugs, it was interesting to see. The other interesting food was a sort of mini candy apples piled together with some sweet sticky coating. If you head to Beijing in the winter time, head to the night market earlier, like around 5ish when people are heading home from work.

If you head south from Donghua Men Daije down to Wangfuijing Street there is also a night market down that area as well. Just tucked behind the main street just past the mosque on the east side there is a small little entrance into the Wangfujing market. This is a real jewel. Like so many great areas in Beijing a lot of the action happens behind the main roads. In the evening this road is lit with ferry lights and lanterns which have a series of food stalls, shops, restaurants and load of other shops that sell a variety of knick knacks. Hawkers try to entice you to buy their wares, but a lot of the experience is just taking it all in. This market has a lot more variety than the Night Market and sells those gorgeous crispy pancakes with green onions. Yummy. One of my friends told me about this and she was right, this is not to be missed. This nice thing about the market, is you are eating local food at 1/10^th of the price of some of the fancy restaurants. You can also sample items on a smaller scale which means you can have a variety of small things instead of one or two items.

Night markets are a must in Beijing.

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