Then we took a bus to the Liangmaqiao subway station and took a train to a stop near Hohai. When we got there we learned that one of the buses that we can catch at our stop here goes all the way to Houhai, so we came home on the bus. Also when we arrived at the Houhai area we were able to purchase a bus/subway pass which will let us travel and travel and travel for just pennies. So, opposed to spending 10-25 rmb/taxi trip, we can spend a quarter or less. Yeah!
We enjoyed walking around Houhai Shichahai...we were there last year...followed some of the same routes but didn't get into the Prince Gong area. It was really interesting though and I continued to pick up language that I can use right away. We came upon a History of Porcelain in China exhibit where we saw many beautiful authentic pieces and hundreds of exact replicas which were for sale (not the originals). We saw work by a Chinese woman whose given name is Shu Zhen which sounds a lot like Susan...so we decided this was a better name for me. Shu means elegant, graceful, well behaved, and very nice (genial). Zhen means valuable, precious. So I guess I can be Bai Shu Zhen which is a lot easier to say than that other name.
Yesterday when we were at Yuanming Yuan I bought a cut paper scroll picture mounted on silk brocade. I paid $28 for it. Today I saw similar ones that I could have purchased for much less. These did not appear to be of the same high quality, but I may be wrong. We walked down the same street that we walked down last year where you saw the chairs and the laundry hanging, they call it Smoking Pipe Street. Last year it was in very bad repair. It has been restored to a much better state but retains the authentic appearance. To my surprise, I came across a real Belgian Chocolatier, so I bought a rum ball, a ganache and a truffle; they were small but excellent. See: http://en.beijing2008.cn/news/olympiccities/beijing/reconstruction/s214239667/n214256395.shtml
We came out at the Drum and Bell Tower. The Drum Tower has been closed since Mr. Bachman was killed, and there is no word on how long it will remain closed, but we went over and looked at them from the outside. Lanny left us alone for a few minutes and suddenly we were fair game for the vendors that work the area. A man tried to sell me some small satin bags, but I told him in Chinese that I already had one, he said, Ni yuo, ma? which means You have? Then he ran off and came back with something that maybe I didn't have. So, I learned that if you add ma to the end of a sentence, it becomes a question.
Next, we walked up to Beihai Park. Hai means sea...So Bei (north) Hai means North Sea. Shichahai is on the south side and means 10 Temples Sea. I guess Houhai means some sea too. It was a major port in old days. There was a waterway all the way from Beijing to Hongzhou which is quite a long distance to the south of here. Beihai park is where the White Dagoba is located and was a nearby summer retreat for the emperors for centuries. It is certainly one of the most beautiful spots in all of Beijing, which I guess really is a big as the entire country of Belgium (Beijing, that is). Here is a picture or the White Dagoba...apparently it was built upon the site where Kublai Kahn had a palace in the 12th century.
We decided to return to Houhai to rent a boat and eat dinner. It turned out that the wait for boats was a little longer than we wanted to endure, so we decided to come back when it isn't Golden Week. But we did go to a Vietnamese restaurant that one of the teachers had told me about, Nuage, which means cloud in French, and the Chinese characters mean heavenly cloud. The architecture and ambience were great and so was the food. I had spicy lemongrass chicken, but we all shared the food and brought home leftovers. This is where we ate...overlooking Shichahai.
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