Day 2 - Hutong Tour and on to Shanxi

We checked out of our hotel in Beijing and went on a Hutong tour the morning of our second day. 

It was amazing to see the history of the Hutongs that are 300 years old. Our guide shared that many Hutongs were destroyed and replaced with high rise condos.  Only in the 90s did they realize they would not have any if they didn't start to preserve them.  

The one we visited was in Beijing.  It is not very large but has 10,000 people living there. The people consider those living there very lucky because the government is restoring and preserving the Hutong. 

Hutong is actually more the alleyway than the neighborhood.  So the village is made of many Hutongs.   We got to ride a rickshaw through the village and got to visit a family residence. 

It looks like many in the neighborhood were military and you can tell the rank of the official by how many posts are above the door.  We saw 2 post and four posts.

 The family home that we were able to tour had 3 generations living there.  The eldest always lives int he south building and it gets the most sun.  The other generations live around a square open garden area.  It was very neat to get a glimpse into this piece of Chinese history.

We then were off to Taiyuan in Shanxi province which was a short flight from Beijing (about an hour).  It is more like a high desert here.  There is an unbelievable amount of construction here.  I lost count of the cranes building condos.  Hundreds maybe.   I've never seen anything like it. 

I've also never seen so much pollution in my life.   It makes me sad for those that live here and it is one of the reasons they have one of the highest birth defect rates in the world.  Coal mining is big business here but there is a cost to that. 

We just checked into our hotel and got paperwork and ourselves ready for tomorrow when we meet our son.  Then we went to dinner at a traditional Chinese restaurant at the hotel and had one of the most interesting experiences.
 
We are so excited to meet Ethan HongBo Motley tomorrow!