Free day!!!!

Both Evelina and I have Mondays off, so we decided to go and explore around some of the old Hutongs and back lakes. Hutongs are traditional Chinese living areas. They are one storey and consist of apartments placed around a courtyard, or series of courtyards,  this meant that you could have multiple generations of one family living together. In Beijing the courtiers and aristocracy would live nearest to the Forbidden City, whilst merchants and those further down the social ladder would live farther out. 

The last time I visited the street it definitely wasn't as developed as it is now. In place of quaint little shops selling traditional Chinese wares, or the locust on a stick takeaway shop, there are hordes of fast food outlets and brightly lit clothing shops. Sometimes modernisation aint so great. You can still find some of the shops that were there a couple of years ago; including my favourite tea shop! I will definitely be making a trip back there before I go home! As we walked along we had to avoid the rickshaws that either hurtled towards us, or that were trying to sell us a trip. Fortunately Evelina and I are capable of walking for more than half an hour, unlike certain larger tourists we saw, squished together. Do you think the rickshaw men see them coming and raise the price? 

At the end of the street are the old drum and bell towers. They sit directly north of the Forbidden city, so there is a direct line between them and the Temple of heaven. It's pretty impressive how they built all of these in a dead straight line. After unsuccessfully trying to get a student discount (Chinese universities only apparently) I payed the whole 30¥ it cost to get into both towers. The drum tower is tall, but instead of multiple staircases it has one long, steep staircase, that have very tall steps. I don't know whether you've ever been climbing something that makes you feel petrified about leaning back and tumbling to your death. I can tell you it is horrible and I genuinely thought that if I didn't keep my weight forward I would unceremoniously slide back down the stairs.

 Anyway, moving on from the apparent fear of stairs, we got to the top; where there is a great view of the local area, and some interesting information about how the ancient Chinese kept time. There was this one timepiece with a series of mini waterfalls, and as a certain amount of water fell through- I think denoting that 15 minutes had passed- a little man clashed his cymbal. It was pretty cool. They also have replicas of the giant drums that they used to use, as well as the husk of one that got burnt in a certain revolutionary period.

We went to the bell tower next, which is right next door. If anything the staircase here was even longer and steeper than before. At the top was this giant bell; which was used to sound when night came to denote the closing I the city gates, and then in the morning to reopen them. If climbing down the stairs was scary, then walking back down them was off the scale. It was slow going and we were clutching the banisters. 
After the towers we turned away from the more touristy area.

There were these groups of old people playing mahjong, 4 to a table. It was really interesting to watch. As we wandered we came across this little restaurant/ bar, which tucked down the side of a temple. We say outside and it was nice and cool in the shade with these little fountains. As it was our day off I had Heineken and Evelina had corona with lime! That combined with the carbonara made it a pretty special lunch. We had a good giggle at the super rah rah guys London on the next table as well. 

We then decided to make our way to the back lakes. Which are a set of Lakes to the North-east of the centre of Beijing. After getting temporarily lost and walking through some definitely non tourist areas of the city we found them. It was late afternoon by this point and they were very tranquil, you can take peddlo boats out, or have someone punt you along. There were quite a few swimmers, and some guys fishing along the bank. 

There are some very beautiful houses on the side of the lake, along with what appeared to be a very exclusive restaurant. As we reached the bridge, which seems to be the focal point of the tourist trade. There are a lot of bars, hawkers and ricks haw men. We shockingly received a lot of derision as we stared at our map - yes I use a map in China, and it's very big and unwieldy. We finally found the subway - I keep saying tube and everyone looks at me like I'm nuts! - and headed our respective ways. We're going back to this rooftop bar we saw there on Sunday night. Taking advantage of the weather whilst its still 30*C! I am dying over here!