Beijing D1 - Hutong Neighborhood

View of Bell Tower and Drum Tower from our Hotel room.

We had planned an easy route for our first day in the city, walking around the Hutongs near the hotel, getting ourselves familiar with the surroundings. Many such hutongs, some several hundred years old, are in the vicinity of the Bell Tower, Drum Tower and Shichahai Lake, 什刹海.

Moving around, we realized that Hutongs were simply neighborhood alleyways which still form the heart of modern Beijing. In the quiet afternoons, it was like home in our very own housing estates.

Some residents were thus understandably disturbed by the many visiting 'intruders', and they had signs put up to discourage entry - so learn to move around quietly, smile and be friendly. Hopefully it helps.

I was imaginative, picturing life in these Hutongs several hundred years back when the size of your doorways determines your social status and that people were travelling on horses back...!

Alas, the novelty soon worn off as we discovered that Hutongs were everywhere in Beijing! It's no wonder Beijing had no qualms about tearing down the Hutongs; some of the houses mentioned in Hutong guide books were already bulldozed over when we arrive..

半亩园 in HuangMi Hutong

These photos were taken along 东棉花胡同, 同府学胡同, 北沟沿胡同, 钱粮胡同, 黄米胡同, 礼士胡同, just some of the recommended Hutong to visit from guide books.

With the speed of modernization, it's a shame that many part of the Hutongs were undergoing reconstruction, converting the houses into profitable business stalls and eateries or retrofitting the houses with a look of sophisticated man-made antique ornaments for the huge number of tourists - but every visitors here had probably so much of these modernism from where we came from; new construction might just drove down tourism?

We thus decided to cease anymore of these residential Hutong hunting after today. It was after all a lot of walking to see very little.