Mr. Shi’s Dumplings

6/26

Mr. Shi’s Dumplings is famous. Possibly more famous among foreigners. They have a few locations and we went to this one sort of near the Drum and Bell Towers. And the dumplings were delicious! We opted for fried over steamed and we got some that had cheese as part of the filling (very much for the foreigners). Absolutely delicious! So good! We even got Squidgems to try some!

 

This Mr. Shi’s is in a hutong neighborhood (one filled with a lot of hipsters) so we had a little exploring trying to find it, and then trying to find our way to a different subway stop to get home.

Date Night

5/7

Some friends Brandon works with invited us to try a new Indian Restaurant with them and a few other people. Brandon and I met them there. First we walked around the Houhai Lake area and then around the outside of the Drum and Bell Towers and the hutongs there.

 

The kids and I went to the Drum and Bell Towers last year, but Brandon hadn’t seen them so we walked around the courtyard between them and snapped some pictures before walking through the neighborhood north of them and then back south and east toward the restaurant. It’s sort of a hipster neighborhood… so lots of oblivious Chinese people living their lives, and lots of young foreigners thinking they are awesome because they are the only foreigner on their street.

 

 

 

 

Insert dinner picture here.

While PS is away…

While PS was in Hong Kong, we took the boys on a few little adventures.

Saturday, 4/30 we went to the mall down by the southern Ikea and ate lunch at a yummy Japanese place called Udon and Tempura.

 Above: Udon noodles… delicious, with a hint of curry. Mmmm.

Below: a curry beef and rice dish

Then we shopped a little at the mall (bought Squidgems his Star Wars BB8 shirt from Uniqlo) and then explored the Subway Culture Park.

 

 

We found this giant tile subway map at the Subway Culture Park.

Little Guy (far left) is standing on our subway stop and Buddy (far right) is standing on the church subway stop.

 

 

 

 Inside an old Beijing subway train.

From there we headed to just south of Tiananmen Square and explored some hutong streets while trying to find the Christian Woodcarver so we could buy a nativity.

 

We ended the day at the  Xidan bookstore (B shopped for maps) and then a Korean Bibimbap restaurant at on of the Xidan malls. Bibimbap is one of B’s new favorite foods.

Top left is a weird bibimbap… there’s an egg in that seaweed ball. Bottom left is a beef and rice dish. Bottom right is beef udon noodles. Delicious.

Nan Luo Gu Xiang Hutong

3/8  lines 6 and 8, Nanluoguxiang stop, exit E and head north

Princess Sparkley and her friend A have been trying to plan an outing forever and A’s family is moving back to the States I organized their hutong shopping. A had a bunch of money she wanted to spend on Chinese food and other knick knacks and PS loves this hutong. We tried a bunch of food and the girls bought some stuff. Then I took them to Xalapa (a Mexican-like restaurant) at Ping’anli subway stop (line 6). Then we went to the young women’s activity.