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Published: February 13th 2006
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Trying to adjust myself to the normal hours people are out and about I get up real early around noon today. I arrange to meet Joanne at Houhai lake around 2.30. The lake area is downtown just north of the parks bordering on the Forbidden City and a popular area to hang out, with its countless restaurants, bars and coffee houses. The area is also surrounded by the famed Hutong areas of narrow alleyways and traditional houses, and most buildings are confined to one or two floors. Of course the price of all this is that it is rich with touts and other tourist trappings. It is yet another chilly and grey day but still good for walking along the lake. Right now the lake is covered with ice and there are a lot of people out skating. Some more daring guys have brought out their bicycles instead. Joanne wants to go have a cup of something warm so we go sit inside an empty bar, which incidentially is just the way I like them to be.
As daylight is fading in the afternoon we go out again, as I would like to catch a view of the drum and
bell towers which lie just north of here. This is a very pleasant area of town even though it is quite messy with a lot of construction going on, tearing down of old buildings and widening of the streets. After walking the area for a bit we go have dinner at the S'Silk Road restaurant in the southern end of the lake, a place specialising in Yunnanese food. There are lots of interesting things on the menu; Joanne selects the best things she knows from the menu, and I try to find the weirdest stuff, and there is plenty to choose from. She looks at me a bit disgusted, am I really sure I want to order those things? I will have to finish them myself. Sure thing, bring it on!
The first plate brought in contains a sliced sausage with peppers and the second has leek and dried peppermint leaves. Then we have a basket full of dried bamboo worms and honey roasted bee pupae. A small plate with dried duck tongues, a delicious red pepper fried flatfish, boiled vegetable sticks of carrot, lotus and cabbage, a plate with ming ze style fried sticky rice and for dessert
some kind of pancake like rolls that I don't really remember what they were. Everything tasted really nice and even though we eat until being too full you never feel stuffed the same way you would from western food.
Thinking about tomorrow and how to organize the pickup of Kay and my checkout I decide to give up the last night at Mr. Wang's apartment and transfer to Joanne's place one night early. This will save us a lot of criss crossing around town tomorrow as Joanne's place is also on the right way to the Capital Airport. We return to my apartment and call on Mr. Wang to pick up the key and then we take a taxi back to Joanne's place. I am glad that Kay managed to get a seat on the early flight out, otherwise she would not have arrived until late in the afternoon, which means we will be able to use the full day tomorrow. Since we need to get up early morning at five we decide to head to bed a bit early. So far my stay in Beijing has been luxuriously lazy.
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