Gui Street Travel Guide

Along the Gui Sreet also named Ghost Street, there are a lots of restaurants. Unlike Sanlitun Street or Shichahai Street, the mainly guests of the Gui Street are local people. The only reason for coming here is the delicious dishes and their reasonable price. Restaurants in the street open for 24 hours, and are especially busy from 6:00pm to 4:00am. It is a good place for you to try some Chinese or Beijing dishes. Among the multifarious dishes, the specialty "Spicy crayfish"(Beijing people call it Maxiaoer) is hottest one.  
Whenever the night falls, the red lanterns on the street are lighted up. Then the street begins bustling. Common Beijing people who are almost middle-class come here and sit in their favorite restaurant, eating, chatting, and laughing regardless of the surroundings. And this becomes one of the relaxing ways of their daily life.
The Maxiaoer is so popular that I'd like to recommend it peculiarly here. It is not only very flesh and delicious, but also brings people great fun. This dish tastes hot and its flavor is various from different restaurants. Before eating, people have to remove the shells. At the same time, they drink some beer and chatting with your families or friends happily. The process is full of fun. You can also order the dish without pepper as you like.
You may wonder why people call this flourishing street "Ghost Street". Well, the Gui Street locates at the Dongzhimen (Dongzhi Gate) which is one of the four city gates of Beijing. Date back to the Qing Dynasty, each of the gates had special use, the Desheng Gate was special used for dispatching troops, the Yongding Gate was special used for withdrawing troops, the Xuanwu Gate was used for executing the criminal and the Dongzhi Gate was only used for transporting woods in and sending bodies out. As time passes, the area near Dongzhi Gate developed into a market. And people called it "Ghost Market", because the market open late at night and closed early in the morning as well as it location.