It was another busy day and tomorrow looks even busier. We met part of our travel group today. They seem to be wonderful people. The other family had not arrived due to missing a connection in Tokyo the night before.
Then, we spent the morning in a cultural orientation seminar, had lunch, went on a rickshaw tour of a hutong with Bing and our travel group and spent the evening with our group. It was a nice day. The weather was cooler than it had been but still comfortable.
The word hutong means narrow streets, but now refers to older Beijing neighborhoods made up of one-story homes that surround a courtyard. These neighborhoods are kept this way to help the people remember how Beijing used to be (much like our own historically preserved neighborhoods). The homes in these neighborhoods are passed down through many generations. During this tour, a local family graciously allowed foreign travelers to enter their home and tell a little about every-day life in the hutong.
The rickshaws resemble the old rickshaws except that they are now mounted to three-wheeled cycles. The young men driving them move very quickly with quick reflexes throughout the narrow streets of the hutong.
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