The Houhai at night.
The Houhai area in Beijing is a man made lake surrounded by bars, restaurants, stores and tea shops. It is a very popular nightclub area. I went there with my boss and one of my co-workers one evening for dinner. I returned a few days later during the day, but those pictures will be in another post.
The entrance.
Lovely outdoor seating area on the lake.
A famous duck restaurant (so the sign said) that was full so we couldn't go in.
I'm not entirely sure, but I think these were lotus flowers growing in the lake.
Quite possibly my favorite picture ever.
Am I the only one who thinks a character drawing of Putin is a little odd?
The outside of one of the many many bars.
Paddle boats on the lake at night.
A hot pot restaurant that was also too full for us to get a table.
A well illuminated night club.
One of the bridges over the stream coming in to the lake. This is by no means a clean and clear lake.
A tea shop that was closed that night, which I visited a few days later.
I don't know the purpose of this thing, but it was awesome.
There were a lot of men swimming in their underwear in the lake. I saw this repeated during the day when I went back. i asked them if I could take their picture and they all smiled and agreed. Berwin, my co-worker, says this was only agreed to because I was a white lady.
Spicy fish head. So tasty!
This is not the Houhai. This is a big duck restaurant we went to with all the Chinese teachers who helped us during the expo. It was just after their regular lunch service so the place was completely empty.
You could order duck (five different ways) to be packaged and shipped or brought home.
Team China
This is another market mall. Way crazier and much more authentic than the other one. I got a jade dragon pendant here that is gorgeous, but I had to have Berwin and Ma'am Yay (my boss) do the negotiating because a Westerner with no Chinese is like a walking dollar sign here.
The outside of the market had all of these crazy (and kind of creepy) ornate animals on it.
Berwin (my half Chinese, half Filipino, raised in Canada co-worker - he is, as you might imagine from the description and picture - awesome.)
The creepy animals. Berwin says they are from a Chinese children's story.
Look here are more of them.
(As an aside - I would have very much liked to take a picture of the bathrooms at this and the other market to show my one main area of culture shock, but it seemed impolite to photograph a toilet. However, here I would like to give a description, if for no other reason than if anyone who reads this blog goes to China, they should be forewarned. The bathrooms have stalls, some stalls are full wall, what I would call normal stalls, other stalls are half stalls that come up to about my waist. Obviously, you can be seen in these stalls, especially when you are a 5'8" person. There are not toilets in the stalls but rather slats on the floor for you to stand on while you squat over what looks like a urinal installed in the floor. It is not comfortable in the squatting or knowing that you can be seen while squatting. So, word of advice to those of you ladies out there traveling to China; wear a skirt, or short pants or roll up your pants to your knees before entering the bathroom.)
Next post...my Hutong tour...
with this guy.
