10-26
Today was a terribly rainy and cold day in Xi'an.  I needed to get up and go to a pharmacy to get Malaria pills for later in my trip, so I popped into the first one I saw (there are lots).  Armed with my dictionary and point it book, I felt like it would be no problem to find what I want.  The first pharmacy was a failure.  I first acted out getting bitten by a mosquito.  They seemed to know what I meant, but brought me bug bite ointment.  Then I wrote it down and used the chinese word for "anti-biotic".  They were unable to find it.  I gave up and decided to go back to the hostel and stopped at the grocery on the way back from some Bao-Zi and Monkey Skins (tofu I hope).  Just before I got to the hostel, I realized there was another pharmacy next door to it.  I went in with the same routine and they immediately brought me a medicine dictionary with English--I found the drug I needed, Doxycycline, and showed it to them.  It was like two dollar s for a 2 month supply.

I found the Brits from Bathe (Sam and Sinead) in the lobby when I returned, and their friend from Canada.  I shared my Bao Zi with them.  Their only response was to know how they could get in on this, so I led them back to the grocery, and then two other travelers, Jeremiah and Lauara, made our acquaintence and joined in.  It was a bunch of White kids in a Chinese grocery store, and I'm sure it was hilarious.  In a way, it's kind of like a science experiment--to see if the White people can do acts of daily life without requiring help.  The Chinese will watch us, intently--ready to jump in and help at the first sign of desperation, like a parent teaching a child to swim, at bay until the kid begins to sink.

As the afternoon wore on and the weather failed to improve, I finally dragged myself out of the hostel and scald the Xi'an walls, the South gate of which is right next to the hostel.  The wall is a square the is built around the center of town--it's only 12 kilometers.  People either bike or walk it.  I walked about half of it, but barely saw anyone else up there (the weather), but it is still impressive and I absolutely pretended I was a ninja, archer, and wizard; in that order.

I was trying to get a group togethor to go for a "dumpling banquet", which I read about in my lonely planet--a specialty of Xi'an.  I was imaging some extravagent feast of nothing but dumplings--in all sorts of colors and shapes, with a variety of fillings.  I asked the people at the hostel about it and they pointed out a street to walk down and wrote what I would want in Chinese for me.  I convinced Alex and her Australian friend to come, so I met them at my hostel and they brought two others from their hostel with them.   We walked to what we thought was the street, but the map the hostel drew on wasn't exactly the best, so I stopped some lady passing by and asked her.  Her English was good, and she actually walked with us to a place and ordered for us!  Amazing.

Some other Brittish guy, from London, who was an English teacher in Xi'an (and spoke perfect Chinese), was promoting a party for tonight, that he was calling a Muppet something--yea--Jim Henson muppet.  It wasn't too far from our Hostel so we thought we'd give it a whirl.  It was terrible though.  It was one of those awkard places where you feel totally out of place.  We stayed for one drink and then left.  We went to another bar/club near our hostel that was a bit better, but the street food we had before it was probably the best.  The Chinese clubs tend to just play really loud music, even when there is no dancing.   It doesn't look very fun--unless your a telepath, which perhaps is the real explanation.

10-27
Last day in Xi'an.  Got up late, cleaned up and packed.  I found Joanna, whom I had met the night before in the cafe and joined her for breakfast. She and her boyfriend were going to Chengdu today, which would be their 3rd attempt (bad luck with trains).  It seems like most of the people I have met are going to Chengdu, so I'm a bit sad I decided to go somewhere else, but maybe I will meet up with them again.  I took it easy the rest of the day--read, blogged, watched some tv, got some snacks.  I got a soft sleeper on the train--basically 1st class.  It was nice, but not much different than 2nd--4 beds instead of 6, and a door.  I didn't talk much to the 3 other guys in my cabin, but they seemed nice.  Two of the guys had to get off the train at 4 AM, which they almost missed, because I heard them wake up in a panic while the train was stopped at their destination and then scramble to get off before it started going again.  I wonder how often that happens?

Xi'an: 2 days into one

I might start combining days that are less eventful now, to reduce the number of posts, since they are all backlogged now, given the Chinese Censorship

10-24

It was raining on my first full day in Xi'an.  I got up and had a nice breakfast in the cafe, chatted it up with a few fellow travelers, and caught up on email.  The internet here seems to be faster than in Beijing.  I took a shower, dropped off some laundry, and signed up for the Terra Cotta warriors tour for the next day.  Next I made an attempt to check out the city by foot.  This was more a partial victory than a complete failure.  I ended up going back to the Muslim district because I knew there were tunnels I could walk in (to hide from the rain) and I knew there was good street food there.  It was kind of a failure because I turned back after I finished my street food, which was some sort of crepe-like pastry that was stuffed with vegetables and then fried in a wok.

I enlisted Pieter to join me on part two of my walking adventure.   We headed to the East street to check out a foreign language bookstore I had looked up on the internet so I could get a Chinese Dictionary.  I can't rely on accessing Google Translator when I'm in a train with no internet, so I want a good dictionary. I chose the one with good English Phoenetic pronunciation (despite not having the mandarin characters).  After the bookstore we scuttled back to the hostel because we were wet and cold and wanted the cheap beers they sold during happy hour.

10-25
Today I took a tour to see the Terra Cotta warriors with the hostel.  Our tour guide completely made our tour--her name was Jia Jia, and she was "26 and single UH", as she would say, with heavy emphasis, again and again.  She attempted to give us the history and education as we walked throughout the tombs, but it was mostly lost between the accent and quirky mannerisms, which, to be honest, was probably the best way to have it.  In a way, it made the group more sociable.  I met a couple from Santa Cruz there, and they gave me some good tips about checking out this mountain used for the floating rocks in Avatar--I'm so there.  So yea, the terra cotta guys--totally cool, but up close they are not as impressive as the History Channel makes them seem.  Still cool, but more in the line of a B list artist.

We stopped for lunch with the group on the way back.  Jia Jia gave us education on the food as well.  It didn't make it taste any better but it was more entertaining.  The power was out at our hostel when we got back.  The government was doing "tests", so we hung out in the cafe and had tea by candlelight and discussed among other things, Kombucha, Kung Fu, and Vanilla Cake.

I ventured out on my own for dinner that night, but it was so cold that I ducked into a Starbucks first, where I ran into Alex from Canada, who was on my tour earlier today (but from a different hostel) with her friend from Australia.  I hung out with them for a bit, where we decided to go back to my hostel and hang out at our bar, but only after I found myself some street food in the muslim quarter.  I had some sandwich with lamb skewers that were rained on by a red pepper thundercloud.  Then we went back to the bar, which was nice.

Xi'an: X = SH

10-23
The sleeper train wasn't so bad.  I was in 2nd class, which means I get a bed with a foam pad on it.  The beds are arranged in bunks stacked in threes, seperated in little alleys with 6 total beds.  My little alley had 2 older couples on the bottom bunks and me and this other lady on the top.  Despite not speaking much English, I made friends with them all.   They were interested in watching me use my laptop. I think my reward was that they shared all the food they had with me:  nuts, crackers, some fermented tofu strips, and some crab apples.
I slept well.  I don't think I woke up once until morning.  The only annoying thing about the hard sleeper is that there are just beds (ok there are 2 small seats that fold into the wall, but they are right in the walkway), so if you aren't sleeping the only place you can really sit is on the bottom bunks, which means you need to make friends with whoever is inhabiting them.  Luckily my group was cool, so I sat there for the 4 hours of train riding after waking up.  I played Diner Dash on my laptop and tried to get the older lady next to me to join in.  She didn't, but she totally cheered me on.

The only Chinese Language reference I had was the few pages in my Lonely Planet book--its not very much, but I tried to communicate using that.  The younger lady in my alley was curious where I was going, and I was curious about how I would get to my hostel, because I knew the train station I would get off at was technically not the closest train station I could be using.  I was able to convey this to her, that I wanted to go to central Xi'an, and was planning on taking a taxi, but she was saying no to that.  It turned out that her destination was very close to mine, and she would lead me.

Her name was Ying Ying.  She worked at a cosmetic company, gave me an Orion Cake (Moon Pie knock off--clever huh?), and gave me a grand tour of Xi'an.  First we got off at Xi'an South station--45km from where I needed to be.   Within 5 minutes another train came in and we got on it.  We were supposed to purchase tickets (less than a dollar), but I would never have known to, so Ying Ying handled this.  The train went to Xi'an station.  We got off and one of Ying Ying's friends, Yonjaio, was waiting for us.  This lady actually spoke decent English.  They wanted to take me to my hostel and then take me out for lunch in the Muslim Quarter (a popular spot in Xi'an).  The food was a Xi'an specialty--a lamb soup with some breadlike cubes in it.  It was great.  I'm not sure if its a traditional Muslim food or some sort of Chinese-Muslim fusion, but I could eat it like 100 times in a row without tiring of it.

Next we walked back towards my hostel and popped into a fancy cafe that probably gets more white people than Chinese.  I walked in and tried to greet the workers with a "Ni Hao" (hello), but I was greeted with an English hello.  One of the guys at the front had dropped a pen and I picked it up for him--he gave me a courteous Xie Xie (thank you), but was scolded by his superior for not saying "thank you".  I guess I should appreciate the effort they made to speak English, but it kinda feels wrong--almost a bit over-entitled, but apparentally a lot of English speakers feel that way, and refuse to even attempt the local dialects.

I got coffee for round one, and then we had some fruit tea made from dried oranges and maybe some tea?  I'm not really sure, but it looked like tang in the glass.  It tasted similar too, sans the grit.

I got back to the hostel at around 8 and found Pieter hanging out in the cafe.  It was really exciting to meet up again.  He shared some tales of his few days in Xi'an, then we talked some politics, as I'm getting excited to see California finally legalize pot, and then I took a bit of a wander around the hostel.  It was a cool layout.  The hostel has 2 atriums, which seemd a bit dumb at this time of year as it was kinda cold, and rainy, but it was still really pretty and I could imagine it is amazing in the warmer months.  The hostel is like a big rectangle, with the lobby and the cafe at either end, and the two atriums in the middle, separated by a hallway.  The only problem I had with it was that since it was cold, everyone was smoking in the lobby and the cafe because they were the only 2 enclosed public areas, which meant they were warm, but thats where I wanted to hang out too, and they had zero ventilation.  I probably had a couple packs of second hand smoke in the time I was there.