胡同

I did a search on the internet the other day for "Beijing Sailing." Well, as it turns out, there is no such thing as sailing (that I could find) in Beijing. There is, however, the Beijing Sailing Center, some 3 hours away on the coast. An organization called NLGX (for NanLuoGuXiang, 南锣鼓巷, http://www.nlgx.org/) recently sponsored an outing to this sailing center. Upon a little further investigation, I found that NLGX is devoted to, among other things, the preservation of the ancient HuTong's (胡同), or small alleys, that were once widespread in Beijing and are now being destroyed in the name of "progress," meaning large, disgusting, western style monstrosities. Anyway, I resolved to visit this NLGX, and in the process, discovered another charming part of Beijing: the HuTong's. The NanLuoGuXiang area is mostly converted into trendy little shops and bars, mainly catering to westerners, judging from the style and prevalence of English. So Angela and I went exploring and I found myself absolutely delighted. I would love to own one of these little places, though I am led to understand they are actually quite in demand and fairly expensive as a result.

This is the view into one of the many little alleys. Along many of these little spots could be observed people sitting, drinking beer, playing games, chatting, hanging out. It really looked like a wonderfully enjoyable place to live, though hot in the summer and cold in the winter to be sure.


A clandestine shot of Angela.

View down a side street.


The HuTongs are quite trendy nowadays. These people were filming or something.


This one is for my Dad. Chinese made, with an opposing twin-cylinder engine like a BMW. I saw a couple of these in the HuTong.


And now for my favorite pastime, photographing hilarious Chinese signs in English! The next two I got for obvious reasons. I have never seen anything like this in China, before. I guess that's a poppy in the lower left of this one?


Check out the little cartoon cop in this one. How are you supposed to take this seriously with the ridiculous caricature giving a thumbs up and the tongue sticking out? I laughed long and hard about this, I believe to the consternation of my companion.


Breath coffee? Yuck. I think I'll pass. Angela assured me it was a very nice name in Chinese.