After a wonderful surprisingly very quite night sleep (considering the population here we did not hear a thing in our room) we experienced the chinese buffet breakfast, rice for breakfast, I don't think so. They did serve some american style entries but you had to find them amongst all the chinese fare. 9 o'clock pick up and we were off to a Hutong. A Hutong is a series of villages built on the north side of the Forbidden City, it is the area where all the Forbidden CIty workers lived back in the day. These villages are now protected from development with the families living here going back generations. Accessible only by foot, bicycle or rickshaw these narrow alleys cannot accommodate vehicle making it very quite. There are approximately 100,000 families still living in the Hutong area and we were very fortunate to visit the Zhang family home. Mr. Zhang owns a 4,000 square foot home that contains a large courtyard in the center with his living quarters surrounding it. He has a roof top garden where he grows many of his own fruits and vegetables. Mr. Zhang is a retired Engineer that has taken up scroll art painting in a studio he created on the south side of his home. His artwork is very good and yes we did purchase a piece as a wonderful memory of Mr. Zhang and his family.
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