25 May 2018
I have lived in Beijing for over five years and am fluent in Chinese. When people come to visit me, I feel obligated to take them on a Hutong tour. I was very wary of going on this tour as I have gone on a few others before. My experiences were: tour guide no-shows, eating at common restaurants, or flat-out lies. I finally went with my gut in choosing this tour rather than going with the more reknowned agencies for my visiting mother-in-law, and was not let down like I had been in the past.
Somehow this tour taught me so much about the Hutongs and Forbidden City than I had ever even imagined. The tour guide was phenomenal. She had a PhD in Beijing HuTong life. This was a truly vivid learning experience. The most amazing part of the day was that I actually never tried, nor even heard of, any of the food on this tour. This is truly a worthwhile experience for anyone that wants to see the true Beijing cliches aside.