Nanluogo Xiang Street

One of my favorite spots in Beijing was this absolutely funky little street, fairly close to the Forbidden City, called Nanluogo Xiang Street. My friend Craig found it in his research about Beijing. It is tree-lined and full of shops (including a great Mao-themed shop that you run into right away - bought some great gifts there), restaurants, bars (including one run by some Australian ex-pats) and places to get traditional Chinese massage. We actually went to the street twice. On one of the trips we ate at a trendy Tibet place - we had no individual plates, just dug into everything communally with our chopsticks. While there I had a canned drink called Tibetan Capterpillar Fungus Drink, which I was roundly mocked for ordering, although it was actually pretty tasty - sort of like vanilla. It became my quest to find it again on the rest of the trip, but I never did and it began to fade into mythology. However, when I later visited the Tibetan Medicine Museum I found that there is such a thing, which goes by the lovely flowing Chinese name of Winter Worm Summer Grass (although not the zum lindwurm of Klagenfurt), which is supposed to be quite good for you. You can buy some of the Capterpillar Funger and put about an inch in the bottom of a bottle of hard liquor and let it sit for a couple months, and then have a little drink every day. While on our first trip to the street Kathy, Susyn and Craig decided to get a massage, while I, wisely as it turns out, went across the street to a rooftop bar to drink some Chinese beer and eat some surprisingly good french fries. Craig stumbled back an hour later, bruised from a brutal massage and covered with the remnants of a traditional Chinese cupping, which he had not realized he had signed up for. His back was covered with dozens of these raised round welts, caused by placing heated glass bulgs on his back. When I saw him they were each raised about an inch (which led us to immediately give him the nickname turlteboy). Unfortunately, it was the one time on the trip when I didn't have a camera, so I'm waiting for some other shots. When I get them I'll fill in the story in greater detail.