We started out the day with a rickshaw ride through the old hutong areas in Beijing. A rickshaw is a bike pulling a two-seater covered carriage. The hutongs are communities of small attached homes with narrow alleys between them. Everyone watches out for their neighbours here. We witnessed the sights and sounds of everyday life in these run-down areas - people chatting, baking, doing laundry, sweeping, etc. Some had small garden boxes or birds in cages outside their windows. We visited a local family who served us tea and told us briefly about their lives. The owner was a retired artist, and her niece was working in the back while we were there, doing the same type of painting on glass snuff bottles that her aunt used to do. The painting was done on the inside of the bottles, so she had to use a small angled brush. The detail was very fine and beautifully done.
Next we rode to a place in the community that does tea demonstrations, and we were shown how to hold the little cup and sampled 5 different kinds of tea. All of them promised to cure or prevent various ailments and diseases (you can image what Michael thought of that!) They also showed how some of their mugs could change colour and design when hot water was poured into them, and of course they sold them, as well as many tea sets and types of tea, in their shop.
In the afternoon we had a flight to Xi'an, a city of 8 million people in the central part of China. A bus then took us to our Shangri-la hotel. The view from our window was very different from the one in Beijing. The latter overlooked the downtown, whereas the one in Xi'an overlooked many tall and short apartment buildings, all of which looked the same.
Next we rode to a place in the community that does tea demonstrations, and we were shown how to hold the little cup and sampled 5 different kinds of tea. All of them promised to cure or prevent various ailments and diseases (you can image what Michael thought of that!) They also showed how some of their mugs could change colour and design when hot water was poured into them, and of course they sold them, as well as many tea sets and types of tea, in their shop.
In the afternoon we had a flight to Xi'an, a city of 8 million people in the central part of China. A bus then took us to our Shangri-la hotel. The view from our window was very different from the one in Beijing. The latter overlooked the downtown, whereas the one in Xi'an overlooked many tall and short apartment buildings, all of which looked the same.
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