Exploring>Class

---

After months and months of grey skies, we woke up late feeling rather down by all the gloom. I went to the window and opened the curtains and, lo and behold, blue skies were smiling down on me! Because we were already running very late, I told Jarek, "Let's just go ride bikes around the city wall instead of going to class!" He wasn't sure if I was serious, but I was not kidding. Months and months of grey is hard so I needed to take advantage of the beautiful day! (Good thing, too, because the next day was back to grey.) Jarek agreed... I really am not a bad influence all the time, I promise!











It was an absolutely perfect day to ride bikes around the wall! It was a little cool with the breeze, we could see the sun, and there weren't many people because it wasn't a weekend. (We have decided all exploring needs to be done during the week to avoid the crowds, hence the title, "Exploring>Class.") We brought enough money for tickets and to rent the bikes. When we got to the top to rent a double bike, the lady asked for a 300 kuai deposit to ensure that we wouldn't run off with that double bike. We didn't have enough money left over, but she was kind and appreciated that we could speak Chinese so she let us give her all we had and go. Jarek was a little nervous about the double bike, but we balanced each other perfectly (as usual!) and it was so fun! The wall is about 9 miles around and we had two hours before we had to get back, which was plenty of time to linger at some really cool places. I was on the back of the bike taking pictures, so that is why some of them may be crooked! After we finished, we got lots of delicious mini dumplings and walked home. We both felt so refreshed with just enough energy to make it through the next set of grey days!













Another fantastic excursion that we took when we could have been reading a boring Chinese book in class was back to the village I wrote about in a previous blog. This time we took the Wilson's with us (or rather they took us because they rented the taxi). It was so fun! We had delicious "Chinese hamburgers" and freshly made yogurt and sugary Cheetos and ice cream! Any adventure that involves good food is guaranteed to be great. This village is really one of a kind. It is a mix of old village life with modern ideas. For example, written on one of the signs in the village is "Wifi" with an arrow pointing to a tea shop around the corner. Kind of funny. If you want to know more about it, see my previous blog, "Mmmm... Scorpions" for more info 😊











After the village we went to a tomb of a Tang dynasty emperor. We saw the mountain where it was located when we were driving to the village so Paul told our driver to take us there. After all, with no time constraints, why not? It was very different from the other mountains I have seen around the Xi'an area. There was actually dirt and not just rock! Despite the extremely dry climate, the Chinese people had taken care to plant hundreds of trees in a very orderly manner across all the hills. I have never seen trees in such an organized fashion. After the tomb we visited some cave homes that we passed on our way to the tomb. There are still so many people who live in caves carved out of the hills all throughout China. When we got to these particular caves, there was a very old couple in their home. The man didn't seem too happy to see us, so he left, but his wife was smiling ear to ear and was happy to take pictures with us and talk to us. Unfortunately, she didn't have very many teeth and doesn't know how to speak standard Mandarin so she was extremely difficult to understand. But I tried to talk to her still and she was happy to see us. It is an extremely humbling experience to see the way these people live and how big they smile.











We love exploring! Don't worry, we still go to class more than we don't go to class, but I mean, when you can do the material at home and not miss a thing, why miss out on these unique opportunities of seeing the country?! Totally worth it.





P.S. There are loads of cool photos that didn't fit in to this shorter blog- be sure to check them out!

---

Photos

Best team ever
Double-bike Olympic race, here we come!

Check out the high rises in the background...

Cast Iron Cooking
Village Style!

Cave Homes
Pretty astounding that some people still live like this.

Dry mountains- a little more like home. You'll have to catch our next post to see crazy unique-to-China mountains...

This is... you guessed it, scorpion alcohol! As if just one weren't gross enough, you have to put those two things together.

Yuan Jia Cun
A.K.A. "The Village"

Tomb on a Mountain
There's a monument erected here on the site of the ruins of the tomb of an emperor from the Tang Dynasty (1100+ years ago).

Pretty humble...

At an entrance to our beloved Xi'an city wall.

Zhong Lou
This is looking down the street to 'zhong lou', the city bell tower. It's at the center of the entire city.

Inside the city walls there are limits to the height of buildings, but outside the walls...

Of course, the back of my head is the main attraction in this lovely photo.

Someone was having too much fun with the camera instead of pedaling...

Quite the contrast between inside the walls and out.

Check out that crazy bike! Any wonder I was worried we might crash? Of course, Kaylee was right (as usual) and we did fine.

This is on the north side of the wall.

It's hard to get photos that really give you a good idea of what the skyline and construction are like in Xi'an, but maybe this will help.

Noodles drying in the sun!