Beijing: Day 1 -afternoon

After a fabulous lunch at a gyoza (potstickers as they are known at home) restaurant where we tried about 10 different varieties, we visited the Hutongs.As part of the tour, we took the carriage you see in the photo to the site and then got a tour of a traditional house from the area.













In this photo you can see the family that was also on the tour with us, a husband, wife and their 8 year old daughter. We spent the whole day with them, they were very friendly and we had no trouble communicating. The other woman in the photo is the owner of the home.





Here's Mike and I on the way back from the Hutongs.






After the tour of the Hutongs, we had tea along a small lake. It was a very contemporary area with lots of drinking and eating establishments lining the walkway. I imagine it's pretty busy in the summer, but on this day, with the cool weather, we sat and sipped warm tea and watched some men try to paddle there boat through the remaining ice on the lake.





No lack of Starbucks in Beijing!



After tea we were taken to a Jade store -very common on these type of tours...Mike and I were a little excited a first, thinking it a good opportunity to purchase some gifts -that was until we figured out the exchange. It was a very high end store and after the saleswoman followed us around for 15 minutes I had concluded that even if I could have afforded something I wouldn't have bought it from her!!

Shopping over with, it was time for dinner!! We were taken to a restaurant that specialized in spicy dishes. The food was SO GOOD!!









The street outside the restaurant.





Dinner done with, we dropped the Kakinuma family off at their hotel and went back to ours. Having seen so much the very first day we decided to stay in, watch some really bad television and get a good night's rest because the next day we were heading to the GREAT WALL OF CHINA!!


...to be continued.