A walk through the hutong in search of vitamin D
Entering the subway at any station and emerging at the Yonghegong Lama Temple is like entering a time machine. The skyscrapers and malls are all gone and past the temple on crossing the street, one enters a lane, or what is more famously known as Wudaoying hutong. The lane offers an insight into how Beijing must have looked a long time ago. It sure makes for a perfect postcard picture, but not one frozen in time.
For these are not residences anymore. And the doors are all open. Walk into one and you will find a Mexican restaurant. Just next door is a boutique selling souvenir T-shirts, beyond that, another sells all kinds of hats and, further still, you’ll find a small cafe.
Though I had been to a restaurant there once, I still signed up for a guided tour of the place, thinking, perhaps, I will get to know about its history, things I had not bothered to check online.
The guide, an American tourist and myself were soon walking in and out of restaurants, checking the decor inside and scanning the menus. Most restaurants have three levels of seating, on the ground floor, the floor above and an open-air terrace.
A restaurant called Saffron, we found out, wasn’t an Indian restaurant, as we had guessed, but a Spanish one. A little down the road, the American fell head over heels in love with some boutiques selling exquisite dresses. “You must bring your wife here if you’re married. She’ll love it,” she told me. Neither of us bought anything there.
After trudging in and out of a few more restaurants, we settled for coffee at a rooftop cafe where we kept looking at what looked like an abandoned fur coat on the settee of an adjoining table, until it first moved and then mewed, much to the consternation of the guests who had been sitting next to it all along.
Perhaps irked by the feline’s propensity to bask in the sun, a leashed spaniel on a neighboring terrace kept barking endlessly, stopping momentarily when guests reached out to befriend it.
The coffee break also provided us a chance to discuss vaccinations and the plight of friends and relatives battling a deadlier strain of the novel coronavirus in India. The American wondered if travel would return to being normal anytime soon.
We had our moment in the sun, but soon it was time to return. On the way back to the subway, our guide pointed at a “vitamin restaurant”. “How does it work?” I asked her. “One specifies the vitamin one is deficient in and they serve you food that’s rich in that vitamin?”
In my mind I was hoping they had found a way of making vitamin D edible enough to take care of my joint pains. But the guide didn’t answer, forcing me to repeat the query. She began checking her phone, perhaps looking up the restaurant’s menu on some site or app. A moment later, she looked up from her phone and smiled. “Sorry, my bad! Not vitamin, that’s a Vietnam restaurant.”
The lane (Wudaoying hutong) offers an insight into how Beijing must have looked a long time ago. It sure makes for a perfect postcard picture, but not one frozen in time.