Night on the town

So to continue with my China expedition. After surviving my first night on nutritional cereal bars, for my second night with jetlag cleared up, I went for a meal on the town. Going for a nearby (well, 15 mins walk) restaurant as suggested by Lonely Planet, I found the architecture and ambience pleasant and I got a window seat overlooking the street, though the scene was nondescript. One option from the illustarted menu was turtle soup with whole baby turtle floating on top, like a corpse dumped in the East River (they really should have weighted the feet), though I must confess I've never been to New York. Another was spewed cradmeat. Crab or crad, from the picture it certainly looked like something I might spew (or, then again, stew). I plumped for Spicy Fried Duck, a dish that when it arrived, left one in no doubt what you were eating, with the fried ornamental head still attached. For drinks, I was tempted by half a litre of Swell Fun, but became rapidly untempted by its prohibitive price and went instead for something forty times cheaper, namely 500ml of Tsingtao beer. I coped manfully with the chopsticks as I dissected my duck. However, with the serrated edge revolution bypassing chopstick development, I resisted looking rustic for as long as possible, but with a drumstick remaining sprawled on the plate, I eventually had to resort to my fingers.
After dinner, I went exploring the streets now it was night, to see how Beijing lives after dark falls , though the poorly-lit alleyways I decided to forgo. Mind you, it is an odd way to orienteer, to do it post-sundown, even with a Beijing map to hand. Passing a street display of trinket-sellers at the roadside, out of the corner of my eye was, I thought at first, was a small statue, but its rocking motion confounded that and on direct sight was an adorably cute three-year old, sitting squat on the pavement, wearing a gold-coloured vestment, with a metal railed barricade as protection from the road. A little further along were more toddlers mingling with their parents doing the hawking.
A nigh full moon shone over the moat of the Forbidden City, the former residence of the emperors, while a hundred strong dance class practised solo yet co-ordinated moves in the courtyard at the City's rear entrance to elegaic music. Take that, Falum Gong!
The inevitable Pekinese dogs were a delightful sight and though they weren't the only representative of their species, big dogs seemed to be in short supply; there was even a poodle as a guard dog for a shop. The only cat I saw was a sweet little ginger kitten looking for scraps in a restaurant garden, both on empty tables and off.