Day 3, Part 3 ...Hutong Tour/Mongolian Hot Pot/Chinese Acrobats

(This is the third of 3 posts for today... scroll down to read the posts in order.)

After we left the Pandas we went to go on a Hutong Tour.



They take you in a rickshaw and drive through the oldest streets and you visit a home and see how the family lived. It was rainy but hey nothing will keep us from doing everything on our tour. So off we went through all these little tiny streets with the homes entrances right on the street. We were met by a guide who took us into a lovely courtyard home.



Each home is in a square and depending on how wealthy a family was you owned up to four sides that all faced the courtyard. The family in this home used to own all four sides but now own two. The woman's father in law was in the Red Army and he was a bodyguard to Mao. So they had lots of money!

We spent some time touring the rooms. Each section has a different purpose. There are living quarters, kitchen area and sleeping area. If you are rich you will have a toilet and shower room as well. Most of the Hutong homes have to share a common bathroom which is usually located down the street. Can you even imagine that. I would be in trouble as I need to use the bathroom at least twice each night. Well I had to use the bathroom at the home (too much sprite at lunch) so off I went to put my squatting into practice. I managed to stay squatted and get up again without touching anything. I was impressed with my skills!

Anyway after the tour we headed back to the hotel for about 45 minutes. MacLean was desperate to go swimming so off we went to the poo for about 20 minutes. Then back to the room to change for dinner.

Our restaurant was Mongolian Hot Pot. Cook looking cookers in front of each person and then you put in the meat, veggies, potatoes, chinese watermelon, dumplings and noodles. you cook it right in front of you. It seems to cook very quickly but not up to my standards so we ate noodles, dumplings, cabbage and some potatoes. Not my kind of meal but fun to go and check it out. I had a pretty good lunch so no worries that we will starve.


After the dinner we went out to the patio and there was an amazing view of the city. We headed to the Acrobat show which was amazing and wonderful. I continue to be amazed at what these young athletes/artists can do.




We enjoyed the show and at intermission used the washroom of course and then got a bag of popcorn and some pringles for the rest of the show. That was our dinner. It was so good to have popcorn and chips. Anyway we are both tired MacLean fell asleep at 9:00pm as soon as we got home.

Tomorrow is a long day we are leaving at 9:30 for a 4 hour drive to Chengde. We will stop halfway and visit the remote section of the GREAT WALL and have lunch then another two hour drive. We will stay overnight and get back to Beijing Thursday in time to catch the evening train to X'ian. I can't believe how quickly the time is flying. We hope you are enjoying our journey as much as we are.

Thanks for popping in to visit us!
MacLean and Shauna