Hou Hai! Chair skating in early March

One beautiful Saturday morning in March, we left Mabel with our Ayi and took the older kids to Hou Hai, a lake near the Forbidden City.  At this lake they have chair and bike ice skating.  It is pretty fun!  Really fun for kids, and much easier for them than ice skates would be.  Maybe a little dangerous with these metal poles and rickity ice skating bikes and chairs, but very fun.  The kids just loved it.  Sawyer and Lincoln were able to ride on their own bikes and ride around the lake.  Kelly and I switched off sharing a chair with Izzy.  The chair had 2 seats, the one in front was for little kids, it had a little wheel on it so they think they are controlling the chair.  It comes with 2 poles you use to push yourself around.  This was such a fun day for all of us.  After "ice skating" for about an hour, we rode a rick shaw with a man peddeling all of us in the back around the lakes.  This was so fun, he was so nice to take all of us in one cart, but I felt bad because we were pretty heavy.  There are 3 lakes that are hooked together and we rode around them.  It was so fun to get away from all the people and see more of the lakes.  We even got to see some crazy men polar bear swimming.  So crazy!!!