Houhai

Houhai is a neighborhood in the middle of Beijing, close to the Forbidden City.  It is one of the original Beijing neighborhoods with the Hutong people and a very characteristic type of housing.  We have been in Hutong areas before, but we had never visited Houhai until this week.  This was truly one of the best things we have done in Beijing!!

We arrived around lunchtime because there was a local pizza place that was recommended to us that we wanted to try.  It was called "Hutong Pizza" and it was really good.  It was truly homemade pizza and they had great potato/leek soup.  The atmosphere was spectacular though because it was so authentic.  You have to FIND the place first which is in a back alley of the Hutong areas.  Then, behind a thick winter cutain, you find a beautiful small restaurant. 

After filling up and having warm tummies, we ventured out to the well-known frozen lake.  At the frozen lake, you can buy tickets (very cheap) to do an assortment of ice activities.  Ice skating, ice bumper car, ice bicycle, ice sled, ice slide, and ice bounce house.  Yes, ice bouce house.  Of course, our children wanted to do the bounce house on ice.  We also selected the slide and ice sled.  We had a blast!!!  It was so fun and luckily the sun was shining so it wasn't too cold. 

While our kids bounced, Jeff and I had fun sitting on our ice sleds, watching the Chinese people (we were the only foreigners we saw on the frozen lake), and talking about how this would NOT go over well in the U.S.  Things like the long ice picks you use to maneuver scooting around would surely result in physical harm and cause a lawsuit in the U.S.   It's pretty sad though, because these Chinese people were having a wonderful time and so were we!!

Lastly, we walked around and had great snacks in the Houhai neighborhood.  We stopped at a Churros place (Spanish), a chocolateir, and went in quaint little local shops with various crafts that I hadn't seen before.  If you come to China, we will surely take you to Houhai!!



Nice hat, right???  I've been seeing these around lately.