Beijing's hutongs are disappearing. The single-story, tile-roofed buildings huddled among labrynthine alleyways, quaint as they may seem to Westerners, are quickly being torn down to make way for new high rises. I spent my afternoon wandering around two of them, both of which seemed destined for different fates. The first, east of the old Drum Tower, was still a functioning neighborhood. Neighbors strolled about. Children walked home from school. Men with bikes laden with everything from apples to wire to cardboard peddled their wares through the alleys. Most of the buildings had crumbling mortar walls and sagging wooden doors. Only one had been renovated to come anywhere near the standards likely to be found in a new high-rise apartment building, much less the standards one might expect in a modest home in a major Western city. The other, which straddled a lake west of the Forbidden City, was quickly being converted into a tourist draw. The old homes are actively being transformed into shops, restaurants, cafes and bars boasting traditional decorations and tourist trap prices. Despite its obvious touristic intent, the place was still delightfully charming.

After exploring the hutongs, I strolled through Jingshan Park. This park centers around the hill heaped up behind the Forbidden City using earth excavated from the City's moat. The place is rich with feng shui connotations: the hill is positioned north of the Forbidden City to protect it from evil northern spirits. The moat is on the north side of the City because water is associated with yin, which is associated with the north. (This association with yin, the female force, is also why the Inner Court of the Forbidden City, where the Emperor's wife and concubines lived, is at the northern end.) On top of this protective hill is a pavilion containing a large bronze Buddha statue that was cast in 1999 to replace the original, which fell victim to what a sign in another temple described as "the so-called cultural revolution.") The pavilion offers a commanding view of the Forbidden City and the miles and miles of smog obscuring Beijing.

Working my way back to the hostel, I picked up dinner at a local night market, consisting of fresh, just-watched-it-made Chinese corn bread (that's right, corn bread) and meat-on-a-skewer. After dinner, I hopped on the subway to head to the other side of town to watch the acrobats that Lonely Planet assured me performed every night. Once again, Lonely Planet was wrong.

Tomorrow I'm heading up for a four-hour hike along the Great Wall, with transportation provided by the hostel. A fellow hosteller warned me that I would need to bring my own food, so I headed to the grocery store near the hostel. Never underestimate the difficulty of finding picnic food when the only things you can identify are the potato chips and the dried squid chips underneath them. I eventually found some bread and supplies to assemble my own trail mix, which will have to do.

After the Great Wall, I head straight to the train for Pingyao, so today was effectively my last day in Beijing. There are some Beijing attractions left unseen: I didn't get to see the acrobats, or the Summer Palace, or Mao's body. (By the time I realized it was too late to see him this morning, it was, well, too late.) Perhaps someday I'll come back, but by then I expect the city will be unrecognizable.

Next blog stop: Pingyao.