Temple Fairs: Ditan, Longtan, Yuanmingyuan, Dongyue
So just after Chinese New Year temples around China have fairs where you can go play games, eat good food and buy souvenirs. I went with a few different groups of friends to as many temples as I could. We first went to Ditan Temple which was the most popular fair and when we got there literally so many people. It was the true 人山人海. Not to mention there was just sooo much going on; food hawkers yelling out prices, people playing games, a lot of crafts and toys to buy, people praying with incense sticks, all over this temple. So we walked around and got lost for a while just people watching and looking at all the different booths. I ate a lot of food including some 狗不理 包子 and lamb chuanr skewered literally on a tree branch. Even though there was so much to see and eat I think the most fun I had at the temple were the staring contests with the tourists. They would look at me like [o_o] and then pull out their phone to take a picture so then I would look at them back like [o_o]... [o_O]... [O_O]! Then they scurried away. After that we went to Yuanmingyuan which was just about the same as Ditan and we walked around and got lost again. Saw people ice skating on the lake there which I had never seen as a native of Californiaaaaa [Beijing has real winter, I had to wear my winter I don't wanna deal with your BS jacket which is the size of a small child]. At YMY I finally got some 炸糕 but it actually wasn't that good so my journey had been for nothing. Le sigh.
The next day I went to Longtan Park alone which was a huge park with a bunch of ponds and lakes, and was really nice. There was an acrobat show and also a stilt walking performance, during that performance one of the dancers eyed me in the crowd and was pointing at me so I jumped behind the guy in front of me and no one could figure out what the heck he was pointing to hahaha. Sorry innocent bystander uncle. Longtan also had the same foods and snacks but one of the stadiums there was hosting all day Chinese chess. I should've went to look in there but I was really tired and soo many people! I also got some crab balls that were really tasty but I wanted to eat everything at that fair. They had suanlafen 酸辣份, fried ice cream, ddukboki, stinky 臭 and fried tofu, some weird soups, fish and meat balls, 茶汤, and I really wanted to buy mahua and bags of candy but I talked myself out of it. I had walked so far from the subway station, it was atleast 30 minutes to the park so I got tired quickly but kept walking around until I had walked around pretty much the whole place.
The next day I went to Dongyue temple which was a much more local and traditional festival. You could buy small luck charms to hang in the temple and buy fortune cards for your zodiac animal. Specifically there were different trees or walls that you hang the charm on for different things. Kind of like an I want a nice body and good boyfriend tree or the get straight A's go to the best school and get rich tree. Many people were burning incense and there was more local crafts and artwork for sale. After that temple we went to Yonghegong temple area and walked around then ate a veggie restaurant that was pretty tasty. When we got home I went to get milk tea and I was the only one there so the guy was just waiting for me expectantly causing me to freak out more and try to order faster [too many options] then some girl came out of nowhere and jumped in front of me while I was ordering so I told her 等一下 so the guy could take my order. Then she proceeded to make the most complicated and mind changing order of ever, even the ppl behind her were like what the heck。I think the worker just kind of laughed to himself watching her be ridiculous. Plus you know you're doing too much if the people behind you got something to say too lolz. So that was my temple fairs experience.