HouHai, Summer Palace and T6 Hot Pot

...and another nice weekend has just ended! Now it's only 4 weeks to go till I return to Ireland!!!

This great weekend all started on Friday night when I headed to HouHai with some co-workers. We had a delicious Cantonese meal in a very busy restaurant and then went to a bar to listen to some live music and relax after a long week!

Here's the band...

The special thing about this bar is not about the music or the drinks, it's about the toilets... Have you ever seen Turkish toilets with a glass floor under which there is an aquarium full of fish? Me neither until last Friday :) I'll spare you the dodgy picture (apart from the tribute in photo #2) but I'll let you imagine... It's quite disturbing!

On Saturday, I went to the visa office (again!) to apply for a new Chinese visa in order to be able to come back to Beijing after going to Sydney in March for the conference. Since I only got a single entry visa the first time, I need a new one and so far, it hasn't been easy to get. But this time, I managed! After being stuck in traffic to go there, queueing for ages, getting myself re-registered by the hotel, begging them to accept a photocopy of my business license instead of the original, I finally got the papers!!! I still have to go back to collect my passport and my visa next week but at least, this is something less to worry about from now on :)

Stuck in traffic!

On Sunday, I went to visit the Summer Palace with Albert, the new ambassador who's here for 6 weeks. I have to admit, the Summer Palace is now probably one of my favourite places in Beijing.

Tower of Buddhist Incense (Foxiang Ge)

View of Kunming Lake from the very top

Same tower - different view

The weather was lovely today, a little bit windy but very sunny! The place is huge! I don't actually know how much time it takes to really check out everything in there but we walked around for 2 hours today and that seems to be pretty good. For a full visit, check out the slideshow below...

Finally, after all this exercise, we had a well-deserved Hot Pot tonight in T6, close to Wudaokou subway station. That was delicious and a great ending to a great weekend!