Xi'an

Ok, I know. Stop yelling at me through email. I can’t help that China has a massive firewall up constantly. I only occasionally get through, and even when that happens, it’s rare that I can get onto Blogger. So my dad had a great idea.. write it out, send it to my sister, and let her post it onto the blog. So we’re going to go with that plan.

Obviously I have a lot to write about; I’m just not quite sure where to start.

There are the big stories… the trip we took to Xi’an in the beginning of October, for instance. We were there for 7 days. Much longer than we had planned. We scheduled ourselves for 3 days, but we underestimated how fast trains in China book up. Especially when you are leaving one of the most tourist-visited areas. I should mention here the absolute absurdity of Chinese trains. You cannot book a train ticket online. You cannot book a train ticket from another station. You have to physically be present in the station to book a ticket anywhere. Which is why we didn’t have tickets home when we got to Xi’an. We had to book the ticket home from the train station in Xi’an. There is no other way—unless you have a friend in the city who can book for you. We managed to catch the 7:00 train leaving south to Changsha on the evening of the 9th. So we scrambled to find rooms at any hostel available in the city… luckily Xi’an loves backpackers… and we settled in for the week. Xi’an is best seen in 3-4 days. Those last 3 days can get pretty dull (add in rain) (adjust for cold).

The first day we were there was definitely a fun experience. We walked aimlessly down through the city looking for our first hostel: The Bell Tower Youth Hostel. So ok, here’s the Bell Tower. Why are we always SO lost? We weren’t too upset, though. For the first time since we left Shanghai, we found ourselves surrounded by Westerners. And suddenly, we were just like the Chinese nationals in Loudi. Point! Stare! I can’t believe it!! Other Westerners! We were saying “Hello!” left and right… waving, nodding to people. Wondering why the other English-native speakers were not as excited to see us as we were to see them. We finally stopped a nice British couple and asked them to point us in the right direction. “Go by the Starbucks, and it’s right outside the underpass..” Starbucks?! Amazing. Underpass?!? No.. we have those in Loudi.


Anyway, we eventually found our place. Rode bikes around the incredibly old and well-kept city walls of Xi’an. Xi’an is the only city that has retained its original city walls, so that was a great experience. Went back to the hostel. Met some nice people.. went out for dinner (which Tony and I ordered for our whole group in Chinese; that obviously made us feel pretty great), and then out for drinks. Ate some great road stall food at 2 am. It was a good night. We went shopping the next day in the Muslim Quarter, a fun 5-6 hours worth of negotiating and walking away from hundreds of small shops clustered together in old close walkways covered overhead with clear plexiglass. Again, some great road stall food. That’s the main thing about Xi’an: the food is amazing. And always being served. No matter the time, no matter where you are. Someone, somewhere, is selling food from a moveable cart, and that food is going to look a little unsanitary, and it’s going to be delicious. We have these in Loudi… but being Loudi, the food will be so spicy that part of you will wish you had never decided to buy it. It will be wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but your mouth will be on fire. I almost mean that literally.

We, of course, saw the Terra Cotta Warriors. It was pretty incredible.. but part of me was a little disappointed. I think maybe I should’ve sprung the extra yuan for an audio tour. Oh well, no big deal. Mai guanxi—it doesn’t matter. The emperor who had these soldiers created never told anyone. They were discovered in the 1970s when some villagers were digging a well. Imagine the shock you would endure as an archaeologist finding this. A never-before recorded phenomenon underground. Thousands and thousands of terra cotta soldiers and horses, all in battle formation. Three pits so far, more probably to be found in the future. And the site is still being excavated. The emperor’s tomb itself is said to be too dangerous to open. Think Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. This tomb is supposed to be full of traps for the too-curious investigator. The artisans who designed it were said to have been buried within so their secrets would die with them. Personally, after seeing those soldiers, I bet the stories are true.

So after seeing all these sights, Tony and I felt like we had done Xi’an. We, of course, toured some food stalls with the new friends we had found. Thought about trying some scorpion on a stick… settled for the fried egg, tofu, spinach thing. Said goodbye to friends, met new ones. Kept a running tab of all the phone numbers and emails we could rack up. By the end of our trip we were cold and tired from the sudden weather change. We had bought all our gifts, gone to less-visited areas of Xi’an. We actually spent the last day we had in the Bell Tower Hostel drinking coffee and eating chicken sandwiches…just waiting for our train.

There were little things about the trip that really stood out to me. There was a sweet old lady who sewed up my bag for me by hand. We had a great moment where the thread had slipped out of the needle and she could not see to re-thread it. So she pulled on my arm and asked me to help her. We sat and laughed for a good 2 minutes or so as I struggled to get the extremely frayed and very small thread through the needle. There was a great man who owned a vase shop down some forgotten alley who sold me a vase for my parents. He tried to tell me it was Qing Dynasty, until I started laughing and began to bargain with him. Once he decided I was not just some easily confused tourist, we began to have a good time just talking to each other. Or maybe I should mention the crowd Tony and I drew in a park. We were sitting on a bench just relaxing our legs from all the walking we had done that day. First it was one lady. She came to talk to us, completely in Chinese. No matter how many times we told her we didn’t understand (Wŏ bu dong!), she kept it coming. Suddenly there were two kids, and an old man in a military getup. Then another man. Then an old man who could speak some English who explained to the rest of the group, “They are from America. This… his wife. He is husband.” We decided that was close enough. And then suddenly we were taking pictures with everyone in this group. Individually.

I know. I finally update and it’s horribly long. I had to catch you up on Xi’an. Now that that is done, the other posts will be shorter. I really should have done this whole work-through-Sarah thing a long time ago. So, expect updates soon.