Beijing Day 3 part 2: You haven't lived until you ride a rickshaw...

After the hike down the great wall, we headed back down the mountains into the city for what Daniel described as a tea ceremony. The word “ceremony” usually gets me excited, but in reality, it was a tea tasting. 

Tea House

We were ushered into a cute little room with stools and a long table and a cute little tea set and a woman came in and made us a variety of teas. The sales pitch wasn’t too bad either. I ended up buying a cup and two types of teas: fruit and oolong. 

Next up on the agenda, a rickshaw ride through the Hutong district and a homemade dinner in a real Chinese household. Daniel had set us up with a family to witness a real homemade meal. But to get there, we took a rickshaw ride through the streets of Beijing. Ibby and I teamed up again to witness the insanity and our driver was more than happy to make the ride entertaining---especially when he realized that I was ducking and covering my eyes when we almost hit several vehicles and some pedestrians! He took us through the winding streets with coffee shops and the locals sitting out playing cards. Then we turned a corner and a view of the lake opened up. It was wonderful! I filmed part of it and you can see it here.

The dinner was set back in a small flat that was 3 rooms downstairs-a small room with a table set up for dinner, a family room with 2 tables set up and a kitchen. The whole thing was probably as big as my living area. We all crammed in to experience a wonderful meal cooked by a Chinese soldier no less. Turns out our chef only “moonlights” as a chef. During the day, he works in the Army. He has a beautiful wife and a 2 year old that we got to meet at the end of the meal. This living space, plus the sleeping area that was up stairs was shared by 4 families. It really makes you think about space in America.

Part of the meal was the zongzi’s I mentioned before in celebration of the Dragon Boat Festival. The lake area (as you could see in the video) was full of people and the treats were divine! They were, however, too rich for more than one.

We had to get back to our bus so that we could make our show, The Legend of Kung Fu, so our rickshaw riders were out waiting for us. We rode back though the district in the same hurried state that we began. Eight of us in our group were supposed to go see a Kung Fu Show that night, but 2 in our group were so tired that they gave their tickets away. I admit that I had trouble staying awake through part of it, but to watch those kids turn flips on their heads was pretty awesome.

Tomorrow we have one more place to visit in Beijing then we are off to Xi’an. If it weren’t for the horrible smog here, I would enjoy spending more time exploring the city and the culture.

Jasmine Tea Ball