Houhai

I'm really behind on my blogging! Last weekend we had Wednesday off from work so we went to this cool place called Houhai. It has a lake in the center, where you can rent out paddle boats or a motorized boat that moves at the speed of slugs. There are also a bunch of shops and restaurants around the outside of the lake, making it a cute little place to spend the afternoon.

 We rented out a little motorized boat and went out for our adventure! We saw some people swimming in the lake and we passed by the little center island where the swimmers camp out. Our steering was very poor on the boat and we got uncomfortably close to the island and the several speedo-clad men. It was pretty funny, in an awkward kind of way. Unfortunately the motor pooped out on us at the tail end of our ride, so Anna called the number on the boat that we guessed was for assistance. She had to call several times because they kept hanging up on her when she would speak English! It was pretty funny, but we were pretty sure we were doomed to float around the lake at the mercy of the tides for the rest of the afternoon. Much to our relief, a nice little man showed up in a rescue boat and with  nothing more than a pocket knife fixed our engine and got us up and running again!

That night we moseyed through a hutong which is a really long alley-way with lots of cute shops and restaurants. There are several of them all over the city and they all offer many different things. We had dinner at a pretty good Mexican restaurant and then Chelsie and I caught a cab home. 

One very important but not usually incredibly useful word I learned is huailu (pronounced whyla): broken