Houhai, Beijing.

Houhai, also known as the Lakes.

We set off to visit Prince Gong's Mansion, it is about a 30 minute walk to the mansion and we had a lovely walk, looking at shops, and eating fresh yummy custard tarts along the way. We finally got to Houhai at lunch time, and made our way to the Mansion. The crowds heading that way were unbelievable, and as we got to the queue to go in my daughter who was not feeling too good said she really couldn't face it. That was fine with me, so instead we had an amazing wander through the Hutongs, which I will write about in the next blog, and ended up back by the lakes. This blog is more about the street scenes and lovely things we saw, I hope you enjoy it :)

The wall plaques shown here and further on in this blog are on the walls of a building in the Hutongs which was once owned by a member of the Chinese Imperial family.

Beautiful buildings just behind the shops :)

Street furniture along the Hutongs

Peeping into alleys and doorways I spotted this....

I have no idea what it is, or why such a mask was nailed to a tree in a courtyard, but I love it :)

More street furniture, I love elephants :)

I think my daughter told me what this said, but I don't remember what she said!

Roof tiles, just gorgeous!

The wall plaques mentioned above, I am sure the building was very high status in its day.

Different building, different plaque, shame about the graffiti :(

An unusual store at the end of the Hutong.

Back at the lakes, I had not seen this side of the bridge before - it is really lovely :)

Back to the lovely shops in the area, plenty of people around. The Bell Tower which we visited last year can be seen in the background.

Interesting, lovely buildings :)

And finally, I wanted some more tea to bring home. We found this tiny shop which specialised in tea, and asked about Lichee Black Tea (my favourite!) and rather than just sell us some this lovely man asked to sit down and he made some samples for us to try! A mini tea ceremony just for us :) Both of us bought some lovely Black Lychee Tea and I also bought some fragrant Jasmine tea as well, plus some tiny tea bowls :) It was a lovely experience, the gentleman and his his wife were really lovely :)

Our walk through the Hutongs in the next blog :)