Hutong Hike… Oh Boy.
“Watch Out…..oooooofffff…..eeeeeekkkkk.!”
“Relax honey… he’s done this before.”
“Eeeeekkkk… Ooooooofffff… EGAD!!!!”
“Illy… Chill… just keep your arms inside the bars and let him drive… he knows where he’s going”
“But he almost hit that other Pedicab and…..Eeeeeeeeekkkkkkk! that was close..,,”
Yes dear hearts… she’s "oooofffing and eeeeking" again. This time I'm not the driver, it’s Han
Liu, our pedi-cab kamikaze who is whizzing past pedestrians and other cabs and just skimming past the walls on the corners. We’re on the “rickshaw” Hutong Tour and these Hutong’s are really narrow lanes. Originated during the Yuan dynasty, the Hutong’s were made uniform 
by the Ming’s as 6 steps wide… not a lot of room for more than two Pedicabs passing very carefully… which is in question every time one careens in our direction. Since all of Beijing is a Chess Board city, so is the Hutong area, with Hutong’s running East and West and Streets being double wide running North and South.This all started with our walk from the Drum tower to the gate marking one of the many
entrances to the Hutong’s. We entered a street that was lined with shops and bars and more shops and bars… and more… ok... ok... you get, hustling 
everything you could imagine. The two way traffic was like I-95 at Rush hour... impossible but fun. Our Guide Wang Jun tries to give us some running commentary while pushing his bicycle along to make a path for us to follow. Of course Chucky is going wild with the digital snapping pics of anything and everything… especially the Bars… [He IS a Saloon Aficionado ya know] so this tends to slow the parade a bit. We finally reach a bridge that divides the Front Lake from the Back Lake [really… that’s the names] and as we cross over to find our pedi-cab we see the entire street is one continuous bar… hence its name…”Bar Street” [Original Hunh?!?!] We are told that this Bar area is really HOT after sundown, alive with Tourists and Locals on the Prowl.To the dismay of you Miller Lite fans… Budweiser and Carlsbad
have taken a strong foothold 
here [as has Jack Daniels] and is proudly displayed everywhere, including in some of the individual bar’s names. One fun one on the way in was named “Shut Up-Just Drink”, another advertised “F…king Good Mojito’s ¥20RMB” and still 
another touted Thursday as “BEER ME ¥50RMB all you can drink “ [by the way… the Yuan Renmenbi is the basic monetary unit here] ¥1.00RMB = 13 cents USD which means all you can drink for $6.50USD. [Hey… sign me up!!!]
We finally find the right Pedi-Cab combination… one for Illy and I and one for Teng, We leave
bar street and begin to dodge other cabs, people, dogs [hmmmm no cats…was that on the menu last night?] and motor scooters that whiz past as if they are on a 4 lane highway. Seems like we keep passing the same spot over and over as practically all the homes look the same… well almost…. And of course Chucky is working the Digital camera like there’s no tomorrow]. Every thing here is painted Grey, roofs, walls, door jambs… only the doors themselves are different. After some serious dodgem… 
we stop for some in-depth details about door design. Wang Jun points out the various features of a particular door which has a round door stone on either side of outside of the entrance, this denotes that the owner is some type of official, if the stones were square it might denote a teacher or scholar. He then pointed out the Lentils [what appear to be the ends of octagonal shaped rafters] jutting from above the door. Here there were 4 denoting a large family. If there were 2 it would be just a small family and none along with no door stone denoted a commoner. Thus by just looking at various features of any door you could tell a lot about the family within.
We then pulled up in front of a nondescript Hutong and dismounted for a visit to a typical
Hutong family Quadrangle. Each home was traditionally arranged in a Square or Quadrangle with the Main House for the elder or head of the household built higher on the north side, the east and west for the children with the roofs at a lower 
level and on the south side storage, or cook shack or servants depending on the wealth of the owner with the center courtyard for trees, plants and gathering. Today we visited the “Wen family quadrangle” and were greeted by Wen Xiansheng [Mr. Wen] after ducking through a very low doorway and a brief summary of the Quadrangles particular features, we were ushered into the main building on the North to meet with Wen Tai Tai [Mrs Wen - or as she referred to herself using Her family name “Ju Tai Tai] a small grandmotherly woman who obviously has a shrewd business sense since all the tours to her home add to her monthly pension of ¥2,500 per month. She has lived here for the past 40 years with Mr Wen, having been given the house by her parents. The home is heated by coal in the winter and share a communal bathroom with several neighbors since the sewer system that dates back to the Ming dynasty could not handle a toilet in each home. In addition to their monthly retirement pension, the Wen’s have government sponsored medicare that pays 80%.
bar street and begin to dodge other cabs, people, dogs [hmmmm no cats…was that on the menu last night?] and motor scooters that whiz past as if they are on a 4 lane highway. Seems like we keep passing the same spot over and over as practically all the homes look the same… well almost…. And of course Chucky is working the Digital camera like there’s no tomorrow]. Every thing here is painted Grey, roofs, walls, door jambs… only the doors themselves are different. After some serious dodgem… 
we stop for some in-depth details about door design. Wang Jun points out the various features of a particular door which has a round door stone on either side of outside of the entrance, this denotes that the owner is some type of official, if the stones were square it might denote a teacher or scholar. He then pointed out the Lentils [what appear to be the ends of octagonal shaped rafters] jutting from above the door. Here there were 4 denoting a large family. If there were 2 it would be just a small family and none along with no door stone denoted a commoner. Thus by just looking at various features of any door you could tell a lot about the family within.We then pulled up in front of a nondescript Hutong and dismounted for a visit to a typical
Hutong family Quadrangle. Each home was traditionally arranged in a Square or Quadrangle with the Main House for the elder or head of the household built higher on the north side, the east and west for the children with the roofs at a lower 
level and on the south side storage, or cook shack or servants depending on the wealth of the owner with the center courtyard for trees, plants and gathering. Today we visited the “Wen family quadrangle” and were greeted by Wen Xiansheng [Mr. Wen] after ducking through a very low doorway and a brief summary of the Quadrangles particular features, we were ushered into the main building on the North to meet with Wen Tai Tai [Mrs Wen - or as she referred to herself using Her family name “Ju Tai Tai] a small grandmotherly woman who obviously has a shrewd business sense since all the tours to her home add to her monthly pension of ¥2,500 per month. She has lived here for the past 40 years with Mr Wen, having been given the house by her parents. The home is heated by coal in the winter and share a communal bathroom with several neighbors since the sewer system that dates back to the Ming dynasty could not handle a toilet in each home. In addition to their monthly retirement pension, the Wen’s have government sponsored medicare that pays 80%.
There are 4000 family’s in the Hutong area today and with the value of the property going up, the 
Wen’s little quadrangle, valued at less $4,000 USD when she received it from her parents, is now worth over $260,000USD and the developers would love to get their hands on it….but the Hutong’s are a protected area and no high rises allowed, only reproduction of the same style is allowed. While we were there a large tour group of Britons arrived and we sat with them as Ju Tai Tai did the Q&A through an interpreter. And all the while with a running commentary from her Mynah birds that speak Mandarin and English and who, now that they had a big audience, just had to chime in.
Some pics all around with Ju Tai Tai and we were off to our Pedi Cab which took us back to
the Bar Street after playing dodgem again. Since our scheduled dinner was soon, Teng decided we should have happy hour there rather than on Bar Street. This turned out to NOT be a good idea… since he immediately got lost and we trekked all around the hutong’s doubling back on ourselves to finally reach the restaurant after dark. [This after several frantic calls from Kung Fu Driver Zhang who was already parked at the restaurant and afraid we would miss the appointed time for our arranged Sichuan Dinner. By now the Dragon Lady’s knee was really acting up but the Drugs the E.R. Doc gave her helped a bit.
Dinner was excellent except that it was definitely on the Spicy side. One Dish, a tofu in red pepper sauce set off the fire alarms [well almost]. The soup was good, a bit tangy, a sweet chicken dish was excellent and the usual Green Tea, Bok Choy and Rice along with fresh fruit rounded out the meal…Good Beer. We gave it a **** rating.
All during dinner, Chucky was trying to get the right number for the Ritz Carlton Beijing as we had intended to meet some friends of Fernando Gibaja, our friend from Spain who was now in Singapore [are you following this] but our Hutong tour precluded this and he wanted to apologize incase they were still expecting us. You won’t believe what it took to get a good # including Calling Cingular International Help Desk where he talked the nice lady there into Google’ing the Ritz and she was able to give him the correct #. He finally got through to the hotel manager and after apologizing profusely, we were off to our hotel and the end of an exhausting day. [up the Stairs… down the Stairs and all around the Hutong……] boy do these Chinese like Steps and Walls!!!!
Tomorrow we are flying to Xi'an for the next leg of our adventure, and since the Wake up call is for 6AM, time to crash…. Stay tuned for more of the Wacky American Tourist and the now limping profusely but still ever lovely Illy as they search for:
再见朋友
Zài Jiàn Péng-You
Chuck and the thoroughly Exhausted but satisfied with her tchotchke scores Dragon Lady.
Wen’s little quadrangle, valued at less $4,000 USD when she received it from her parents, is now worth over $260,000USD and the developers would love to get their hands on it….but the Hutong’s are a protected area and no high rises allowed, only reproduction of the same style is allowed. While we were there a large tour group of Britons arrived and we sat with them as Ju Tai Tai did the Q&A through an interpreter. And all the while with a running commentary from her Mynah birds that speak Mandarin and English and who, now that they had a big audience, just had to chime in.Some pics all around with Ju Tai Tai and we were off to our Pedi Cab which took us back to
the Bar Street after playing dodgem again. Since our scheduled dinner was soon, Teng decided we should have happy hour there rather than on Bar Street. This turned out to NOT be a good idea… since he immediately got lost and we trekked all around the hutong’s doubling back on ourselves to finally reach the restaurant after dark. [This after several frantic calls from Kung Fu Driver Zhang who was already parked at the restaurant and afraid we would miss the appointed time for our arranged Sichuan Dinner. By now the Dragon Lady’s knee was really acting up but the Drugs the E.R. Doc gave her helped a bit.Dinner was excellent except that it was definitely on the Spicy side. One Dish, a tofu in red pepper sauce set off the fire alarms [well almost]. The soup was good, a bit tangy, a sweet chicken dish was excellent and the usual Green Tea, Bok Choy and Rice along with fresh fruit rounded out the meal…Good Beer. We gave it a **** rating.
All during dinner, Chucky was trying to get the right number for the Ritz Carlton Beijing as we had intended to meet some friends of Fernando Gibaja, our friend from Spain who was now in Singapore [are you following this] but our Hutong tour precluded this and he wanted to apologize incase they were still expecting us. You won’t believe what it took to get a good # including Calling Cingular International Help Desk where he talked the nice lady there into Google’ing the Ritz and she was able to give him the correct #. He finally got through to the hotel manager and after apologizing profusely, we were off to our hotel and the end of an exhausting day. [up the Stairs… down the Stairs and all around the Hutong……] boy do these Chinese like Steps and Walls!!!!
Tomorrow we are flying to Xi'an for the next leg of our adventure, and since the Wake up call is for 6AM, time to crash…. Stay tuned for more of the Wacky American Tourist and the now limping profusely but still ever lovely Illy as they search for:
The Ancient Mystery’s of The Far East
A Walk upon The Great Wall
Some damn good Tchotchke bargains…
and a bottle of Fine Rice wine.
[or Good Beer… whichever comes first]
再见朋友
Zài Jiàn Péng-You
Chuck and the thoroughly Exhausted but satisfied with her tchotchke scores Dragon Lady.
