To tip or not to tip...that is the question?

This was the joke of the day because it seems like everything we did required giving someone a tip. None of us really knew what we were doing, who to tip, how much to tip, and when to tip. But we managed and had a few good laughs along the way.

We took a tour of the Hutong area in Beijing. I found this link that provides a pretty good overview and probably explains it better than I can. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutong

We were invited into a local family's home in the Hutong. He served us tea and we talked to him through our guide. It was very interesting to see how the people of this area lived. The residences are all very, very small and the people in the neighborhood have to share a public bathroom because the homes do not have a toilet. I didn't take many pictures in this area because it all went by so quickly (I didn't even know what to take a picture of, if that makes sense). We took a modern day rickshaw around the Hutong (picture above).

After that we went to a few tourist shopping sights, had lunch at a Thai restaurant (it was very good) and then Matt & I ventured out on our own to find the Hard Rock Cafe (I collect the pins from Hard Rock so I wanted to be sure and get one from Beijing). It turned out that the Hard Rock is not that far from our hotel so we decided to walk back rather than take a taxi. It was interesting to walk along some of the back streets and see how the people live in Beijing.

That's it for day 1. Tomorrow we have a full day of touring, so we are hoping to get some sleep tonight.