Beijing Day 3: Forbidden City, Bei Hai Park, & Rickshaw through the Hutong

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Wednesday we woke up and headed off to the Forbidden City! It was amazing how many tours were already there and it was still pretty early! We walked inside the gates and headed over to where we thought we were supposed to buy the tickets. Luckily a really sweet lady, who also turned out to be a tour guide, came up and pointed us in the direction of the ticket office. On the way to get our tickets we started talking to her and ended up hiring her to take us through the Forbidden City. We started off by passing through the inner set of gates and touching the gold nobs on the door (because it was good luck or something?). After pushing our way through the crowds we were able to find a secluded spot so she could tell us about the front courtyard of the Forbidden City. We walked around the city for about an hour and a half (and only saw 30% of it) before we were taken through a "secret" door into a small courtyard. We went inside the building and were in a gift shop that had all sorts of china and calligraphy scrolls around the room. In the middle of the building sat an ordinary looking man who turned out to be a nephew of the last emperor. He is just an ordinary citizen now and actually teaches calligraphy at Beijing University. In his free time, he comes to the Forbidden City and donates his calligraphy to the gift shop for visitors to purchase. We were fortunate to talk to him (through a translator) and he explained how he could write whatever we wanted on a scroll. We decided to get one for my dad, since he had to work while we were there. We decided on the word "Harmony" for the scroll and so he began his work. It took about 5 minutes to write everything on the scroll and when he was done we actually got the chance to take pictures with him! Pretty cool eh?
After that the tour was pretty much over, so we parted ways with our tour guide and headed off in search of lunch. We decided to head back towards our hotel and had lunch at a little restaurant we passed along the way. After lunch our feet were killing us and we decided that a foot massage was definitely in order. The hotel had recommended a couple of massage places and luckily we were right down the road from one! An hour and a half later we were walking on air and decided to make the trek up to BeiHai Park. Since it was really windy and it was getting later in the day, we were one of probably 20 in the park and were able to walk around without being surrounded by other tourists. We walked to the top of the hill and then back down the other side and then headed out to find one of the 10 rickshaw drivers outside the entrance. We were lucky enough because the first driver to approach us spoke English really well and was actually able to give us a tour through the Hutong AND tell us about it as we went!
There are many different Hutongs around Beijing and they're basically just a collection of little streets where most of the locals live. Most Hutongs are extremely hard to navigate because the streets all wind around and none of them have street signs. Our driver knew his route through the Hutong and about an hour later we were on the other side right down the road from our hotel! We were sufficiently tired by this time and decided to eat close to the hotel...

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