china trip : old beijing - hutong tour

Today we had a tour of 'Old Beijing', in around some of the older common Hutongs in this area.

Hutongs are a type of narrow streets or alleys, most commonly associated with Beijing, China. In Beijing, hutongs are alleys formed by lines of siheyuan, traditional courtyard residences. Many neighbourhoods were formed by joining one siheyuan to another to form a hutong, and then joining one hutong to another. The word hutong is also used to refer to such neighbourhoods. Since the mid-20th century, the number of Beijing hutongs has dropped dramatically as they are demolished to make way for new roads and buildings. More recently, some hutongs have been designated as protected areas in an attempt to preserve this aspect of Chinese cultural history. (taken from wikipedia)

This tour was one of my favourite things to do here in Bejing, so far. I loved seeing the older styles of streets and shops. The area is beautiful, complete with a gorgeous lake and beautiful little bridges. The setting is idyllic. The local craft shops were the best we've seen here in Beijing, so far. There was some really unique art, jewellery, etc. Our girls got two peaked panda hats, guess who bought them those? Uh huh, Baba! And we didn't, but we could have rented a boat like we did at the Summer Palace and pedalled our way around the lake or taken a rickshaw tour. Instead we walked around, taking in all the sights along the way.

One of the highlights of the day was finding a seal master. When we were in China almost four years ago, we had a seal made with Lilah's Chinese name, the name that was given to her by the orphanage, in typical characters and her English name written underneath. It was something the guide offered to us during that trip, which meant we didn't actually get to see it being made. Well today, we found a little shop in this district and had the same thing done for Phebe. The seal master sat and carved it out in front of us, Lilah was so intrigued, standing as close to his elbow as she possibly could, taking it all in! Crazy part is, it only took him about 5 minutes to complete. Such talent. I love that both my girls have their own seals now, and both have their seal with their zodiac animal carved into the handle, to represent the year they were born.

We also visited the drum tower and the bell tower in this area. Both with their amazingly steep steps! Oh my! Our guide figured that Lilah's lasting memories of China, would be the amount of steps we've climbed - I think she might be right!

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[ the flickr set is here ]