A wonderful day of touring

Beijing is an amazing city of contrasts between traditional and non-traditional, modern and old, poverty and wealth.  Today we toured Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, a silk factory and Hutong (a local village).  Construction of the Forbidden City began in 1407 and was completed 14 years later.  It comprises more than 9,000 rooms built by over 1 million people during the Ming Dynasty.  It was magnificent to see with its resplendent buildings.  Our favorite however was the Hutong tour.  We rode through the village on a rickshaw and had lunch at a local family's home.  The food was scrumptious!!  Only natives of Beijing are allowed to live in Hutong.  No other Chinese are allowed. 
 
We had rock star status at the Forbidden City.  Many people wanted to take our picture, as per our guide, most Chinese from remote villages have never seen Americans. If we would have charged money, I'm sure we could have paid for a dinner or two.  As interesting as we were to them, they were just as intriguing to us.
 
Tomorrow we are off to tour the Great Wall.
 
I have tried several times to post pictures with no success.