Instead I ventured off route around Qianhai Lake. This park was free, but very touristy. This is where all the rickshaw drivers are to drive you around the hutongs. They looked very touristy with Chinese Characteristics(souvenir) shops and lot of western style food. But it was very expensive, when I looked at the menus.
When I reached the main road, I ate at a Chinese restaurant having cold spinach with peanuts dish and crispy chicken dish with onion and peppers. After I got a tea and haw popsicle at a street vendor and went back to the trail around the lake.
I found an old bookstore that was dedicated to Chinese calligraphy and painting. I used charades to ask if they had books on Chinese style finger painting. But they did not have. (Later I asked my in-laws, supposedly books do not exist on this subject. So it's only taught. Doesn't make sense to me.)
Old toothless men, carrying around little folding chairs with signs in English, "massage". No thank you. Men fishing in litter strewn water and people swimming in it. Granted it was pretty enticing on such a hot and humid day. My mouth is watering to go back home and swim in the Great Lakes!
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