What's worse than spinach between your teeth?

After a shower, a nap and some serious air conditioning time, we were set to venture out and experience some fantastic culinary treats that didn’t come in a container with a flavor packet. Obviously the first stop in China is to any restaurant serving the famous Peking (or Beijing) duck....simply delicious. Most of the smorgasbord of food that we consumed that night was amazing, not sure if I knew exactly what I was eating but with enough sauce... everything was tasty.

“Dessert” was a different story. After culinary delights comes culinary horrors...wanting to partake in some of "weird China" we elected to visit the Donghuamen Night Market. Although I have no way of confirming this, I suspect this was the inspiration for that dreadful "Fear Factor" show from a few years ago. Every night stalls pop up on the side of this busy street so locals can come and grab a bite while tourists come to gaze on in amazement. Starfish, slugs, snails, snakes and scorpions represent just a few of the tempting treats…looking at the revolting selections I had a flashback to childhood…

When I was younger, much younger, for entertainment when no adults were around, we would occasionally play this ‘game’ where the older siblings would pay the younger siblings to eat something disgusting;...$0.25 for a teaspoon of salt etc. It was a way for the younger kids to make a little extra spending money and the older kids to be amused. Anyway, I ludicrously reverted back to this behaviour while in Beijing, and decided to make young Pete my ‘sibling’.

Pete is a fantastic sport with an adventurous spirit and while we wandered down the aisles, the older "kids" would purchase disgusting food on a stick and then we would all stand around with cameras poised while Pete gagged it down. After a few minutes of watching, we realized that Pete was still alive and doing well...most of us then took a courageous culinary leap…

The best advice I can give is; 1) select something deep fried 2) go fast and 3) don't think. That is the only way I was able to get the scorpion down. It was crunchy and certainly not the worst thing I have ever eaten taste wise...the problem was the legs would break off and get stuck in your teeth.

Our night ended at this out of the way rooftop bar, overlooking the Forbidden City, sipping cocktails and picking out scorpion legs from between our teeth…