Autumn in Beijing

Beijing, for all the pollution, is actually quite a pretty city in the autumn.  There are significant numbers of trees on almost every street (other than raised highways), and they all start to turn beautiful colors right about this time of year (see picture below).  The air is crisp, and if it's not always clean or clear, it still looks very beautiful at certain times.  

My campus is quite a pretty place too:

 This is the main street that all of the dorms are on, about two or three days ago.  This day was rather windy, and at this point, a big gust of wind hit and started blowing lots of leaves off the trees.  It was gorgeous, and everyone (myself included) stopped to ooh and ahhh and take pictures!  Coming after a hard day of study, it was a very pleasant relief.

This is one of the other great things about autumn that I have discovered here! It's called a "冰糖葫芦, bīngtánghúlu," which my dictionary informs me is "candied hawthorns on a stick." Having never eaten hawthorns before, or even knowing that they were edible, this delicious discovery made me very happy.  They are a kind of crunchy-shelled fruit, tasting a little bit like apples, but with the inside more the consistency of...strawberries, maybe?  Not quite right, but that's the closest I can come.  They get lightly coated in some sort of syrup (not caramel, but maybe corn syrup), air-dried, and then eaten.  They are delicious! They seem like a Chinese version of a candied apple; same basic idea, same time of year, but they're somewhat healthier, since the coating is not nearly as thick.  Anyway, I discovered these a week or two ago, and since there's a booth that sells them right on my way home from class, it has been very difficult not to buy one every day I when I come home.