Pedicab adventure

We joined others in our group (some of the folks who are going to Guangxi) on a Hutong tour -- hutongs are the traditional housing of Beijing, and now are being preserved. We travelled by pedicab, which was a bit of an adventure, including a couple of near misses and a pedicab rear ender (no injuries aside from a bit of surprise). Grandma has a few new gray hairs, after that ride, and an experience crossing a busy street via foot after our pedicab route was blocked by some accident (getting to see a theme, here?). We saw the famous cricket man. Xian was impressed but thought the big crickets were "Ew, gross!" Xian's functioning on 8 hours of sleep instead of her usual 12, so we'll be having naptime in a few minutes. We also visited a tea house and learned a little about traditional tea drinking and had a few samples (Xian kept with her strawberry milk drink!). Will post some more photos later tonight, but the blog will be a little quiet for the next day or so as we travel to the province tomorrow and will be settling in our Xining "hotel home" as Xian calls them.