Beijijng Out and About

Here is a picture of Beijing, but it went on and on along either side of this picture.

We stayed in a hotel in a Hutong, an old neighborhood. But really, it was a little apartment about a ten minute walk from the Hotel so we felt like natives. Hutongs are hard to capture on film. They were narrow streets, not much wider than a car (and cars totally went down them all the time, as well as scooters, bikes, and people), with doors every few feet. Some of the doors lead into a shop, restaurant, or house, but many led to an alleyway with twists and turns and who knows what beyond. I just loved all the red lanterns everywhere.

Often the hutongs would have pretty carvings on the walls.

And these are the doors that often had a hallway behind them leading to more things and places.

Our apartment was by the Drum and Bell Towers that used to tell time for the residents of Beijing. It was nice to have a fairly visible landmark to guide us home each day.

We went to the Bell Tower presentation one afternoon. They played on five drums, but back in the day they used twenty.

There was a pretty river near where we stayed and we walked along it one night. There were tons of restaurants along here and almost all had live music the night we were out. It was pretty lively!

I mentioned we got around lots of different ways. Here is a cab.

And the subway.

We did pretty well with the chopsticks, but one night we tried hot pot (which I think I would have liked a lot better if I understood better how it worked and we'd gotten more than meat) and I dropped a piece and splashed soup all over...then our helpful server brought me a spoon! No more chopsticks for me, I guess!

Jason had no such problem!