Houhai Lake
We recently visited Houhai Lake in northern central Beijing. It’s part of Shichahai, a historic area consisting of three different lakes northwest of the Forbidden City.
You can see it on the Google Map below.
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It’s a nice area and I took a few photos, so here they are:
This is the south side of the lake. There’s a lot of people just hanging out playing hacky sack and walking around. The lake is surrounded by restaurants and bars — most relatively new, from around 2003. If you look at the left side of the second photo, you can see a Starbucks.
Here is a close up:
In the far right window (under the glare, sorry) you can see the standard logo. Starbucks is pretty much the same price in China, maybe a buck cheaper, which really sucks because I have a serious caffeine addiction and I pass one every day on my way to work. It’s so tempting, especially the green tea lattes which are amazing. They taste like the green tea ice cream you get at sushi places in America.
Here is a shot from the western side of the lake:
It’s kind of pretty, but not the kind you think of when you imagine lakes. It’s not serene, at all. China doesn’t do serene.
For example, here is one of the alleyways leading away from the lake:
Oh look, it’s a crowd of people.
Speaking of crowds, I saw a bunch of people gathering around a little bird so I went to check it out. He was the most amazing little guy ever. He would take money from people and drop it in a little birdie bank.
And while we’re on the subject of cute animals. Look at how fluffy and goddamn cute this Chow is: 
Hey guys, there’s a reason Chinese dogs are called chow. I’m kidding! Well, not really. But I’m pretty sure nobody ate this dog.
Let’s change the subject. I found a little shack along the lakeside selling propaganda posters. 
A lot of children were depicted in the posters, not really surprising.
I think this set was my favorite: 
I love the farmer holding the Little Red Book aloft, which is hilarious to me. Look how happy he is to be starving to death! Maybe he’s just happy he found his copy, otherwise Red Guards would be beating him. Next to that we have the red fist smashing some guys, I’m not sure who. If you can figure it out let me know, otherwise I’m just going to assume they are capitalist pigs or members of the liberal bourgeoisie. And finally, a smoking ad! Of course.
Alright, I’m going to wrap this post up on a good capitalist note: 
Guy killed me, Mal…
He killed me with a sword. How weird is that?
This is what happens in Chinese parks. There were like 20 old people — mostly women — swinging around swords for exercise. Please note her Playboy bunny pants.
Llama Temple
Saturday we sent sight-seeing and I visited a Buddhist monastery called the Llama Temple. From Wikipedia:
The Yonghe Temple , also known as the “Palace of Peace and Harmony Lama Temple”, the “Yonghe Lamasery”, or – popularly – the “Lama Temple” is a temple and monastery of the Geluk School of Tibetan Buddhism located in the northeastern part of Beijing, China. It is one of the largest and most important Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in the world. The building and the artworks of the temple combine Han Chinese and Tibetan styles.
I was going to write more about the history and beliefs and all of that stuff associated with this temple, but let’s be honest, it’s all bullshit anyway. And you guys just care about the pictures, so here they are.
The neighborhood around the Llama Temple is pretty cool and has similar architecture, so I took a few photos of the area outside the temple.
The entrance to the temple is a long walkway with trees on both sides. It doesn’t look at cool here as it would in the summer when the trees are green, but it is still pretty sweet.
Inside the courtyard you can see the first temple building. When I took the banner picture Jupiter was in retrograde and the moon was full so the courtyard was magically empty. It normally looks like this:
In the courtyard there is a big bell that a couple kids were ringing. It was kind of endearing.
There were also stone lions outside of the first building. You can see them all over China, usually at gates and entrances. Below is a picture of the female lion with a cub under her paw.
All around the temple there were people praying and burning incense. I’m not really sure what the deal is with incense — I thought it was just something hippies really enjoyed. Apparently it also serves as a sacrifice to certain gods. And it’s used to brand monks heads when they become ordained. I’m sure there’s a reason somewhere, but since this is religion we’re talking about I’m also sure it’s made up nonsense.
I wasn’t allowed to take pictures inside the actual temple buildings, but I did manage to sneak one of Buddha and some other god.
Sorry Christians, but if I have to pick an imaginary friend I’m pretty sure I’d pick Buddha over Jesus any day. Buddha looks like a party animal; Jesus is all weepy and sad. (And he gets blood on everything he picks up. Clean up those holes, dude.)
Most of the people weren’t actually inside the temple buildings. They congregated in the areas between buildings around incense and weird spinning luck machines.
Okay, time for the last two pictures. Tell me they don’t say something about Chinese culture. I’m not exactly sure what they are saying, but it seems profound. I’m sure it has something to do with how tradition spans generations and keeps the Chinese connected no matter how different they are. Or, it’s that Chinese people really dig beads and incense.
Snow In Beijing
In case you couldn’t guess from the title, it snowed today in Beijing. There were some of the biggest, floppiest snow flakes I’ve ever seen.
I’m pretty sure it only snows the Chinese government makes it. They blow a huge horn and the ghost of Mao appears and if they sacrificed enough virgin rice paddy peasant girls to please the ethereal chairman he grants them 3 weather related wishes.
Just kidding, that would be stupid. Really they just pass a law demanding that the weather obey them. It works!
Anyway, here are some of the pictures I took. As usual, click them to get a bigger version.
Here is some random Beijing lady who was shoveling snow. She didn’t really seem like she knew what she was doing.
Here is a snowy road leading away from our apartment. I don’t have any jokes to make about this one or the next couple. So I’ll just post them without comments and you guys pretend I said something really funny.
I don’t know if this is a good picture or not, but I was trying to show how the fat snow flakes were just sort of hanging in the air around the apartment and falling really slowly.
The courtyard outside our building looked really cool with the snow all swirling around.
Guards like this are all over the city. We can’t tell if they are like real government guards or the housing communities hire them. Normally they are much more menacing. But not this guy. He is just enjoying the snow.
These girls didn’t really seem to be enjoying the snow so much. But the next girl that walked by was loving it. Look below.
Look at how happy she is! I never actually saw her face but I’m definitely in love with her. She’s such a free spirit. Maybe we could star in a romantic comedy together. I’ll be all stuffy and upright and well-mannered and she’ll be the free spirited hippie girl who teaches me to enjoy the simple things. That hasn’t been done before, right? I bet her name is Dharma. (For the record, I prefer Simon and Kaylee as my stereotypical-uptight-guy-with-free-spirit-girl couple.)
Alright so that’s what snow looks like in Beijing. Any questions or should I keep making jokes about Mao’s ghost? Fine, I was leaving anyway.
Our Little Dumpling Shop
So Anderson and I have been looking for places to eat near our sweet apartment, and we found a little alleyway when Anderson, had to take a cab to work. There are a bunch of really cheap places to eat including a place that I am dubbing our little dumpling shop.
It’s really good food for a really low price, (13 yuan each or 1.90 USD) and also has cheap beers. Below are some pictures of our dinner tonight.
Here’s the inside of our shop.
Here are the dumplings or Jiaozi in Chinese.
Here are the xiaolongbao (which are nothing like the real things in Shanghai, too doughy).
More Jiaozi next to our 3 yuan (44 cents American) beers.
Jiaozi Soup.
The food being cooked outside.
