Sheilas in Xian-Cycle the wall.

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It all began when the dates were being organised for the Golden Week in October. The drama for the Education Department was the extra holiday of Mid Autumn Festival and trying to prevent the spread of H1N1. The Chinese celebrate many weird and wondrous things and the mid autumn festival is one of them. It's really just the middle of the Chinese Lunar Calendar Year. So, why not celebrate with fireworks and moon cakes which are a heavy pastry filled with various things...fruit..nuts or both...meat etc of which no one really likes anyway but it's tradition to eat them at midnight. yeah, right!

The beauty of all this is that it means we have more holidays only 2 weeks following the last. Yippee! Now it took some time for communication for the Education department to sort itself out about which are school days and which are not. But we were given firms dates so Sheryl booked the flights for the 3 of us to Xi'an immediately. Then after a short time it was announced that there'll be training on the Sunday, the day our flights are booked, and quick as a whip, Sheryl told them "Well, you're shit out of luck because we've already booked the flights." So soon? came the reply. Now this is a clear example of procrastination. The government knew full well that the national holiday and the mid autumn festival would be on the same week, so why the hell didn't they sort it out sooner?

At this stage, I'd like to introduce Sheryl, an Aussie Kiwi chick who likes cold beer, great food and a good laugh. Most likely in that order. Next up is Lisa from US who is still suffering a little from shock of being in China and the perpetual hangover, having been out many times in her first month drinking with the other teachers in Jinan. Lisa is a quiet petal at first and such a lady by day but at night when she's asleep she lets out all her aggressions. Maybe I tell you about that later. And of course there's me. No need for introductions there but for any new readers out there, I'm an Aussie (ditto with the beer, food and laughter)

I travel to Jinan to meet the girls and we fly out to Xi'an at 3pm. We are at the airport, but in usual fashion we talked so much that we miss the announcement that the gate has changed. So we race down the terminal looking for the gate but as luck would have it, the flight was delayed. The flight was quick and painless, and we managed to find our hostel easily inside the walls of Xi'an. The streets inside the city walls are humming with activity at 8pm. Side walk vendors with paintings and other trinkets. But with our packs on our backs we decide that we have plenty of time for shopping later.

The ShiYuan hostel is near the South Gate of the city wall and will be our base for 5 days. Although tired we go out to stroll the streets but it seems not much is happening and we make it an early night.

Cycling the City Wall

After some coaxing, Sheryl and Lisa agree to hire bicycles with me and take a trip around the entire city wall. All 13.7km. Sheryl admits that on her last outing on a bicycle she ended up in the dirt and Lisa offers that she hasn't ridden a bicyle for 35 years. Well, it's easy...just like riding a bike...er...think we got that. The first pics show unsteady women.. and the locals were laughing. But not for long. We circumnavigated the wall in less than 2 hours. A pretty good effort considering we stopped often to take pics or look out from the wall.

After we put our horses back in the stable we had a look in the souvenir shop. Sheryl was quick to eyeball a jacket. Quite nice but with a tag of 880 yuan. The shop girl was quick to say 50% discount today. Only 440 yuan. No thank you but it is nice. It goes back on the rack. We move around and Sheryl heads back to look again. Uh oh. The vultures are circling. For you today 350 yuan. Ok the price is coming down. A discussion takes place between the three of us and the suggestion of 200 and sticking to it is made. Ok then. To-ing and fro-ing but the manager steps in and says no less than 300. Ok bye bye.

We walk down the long flight of stairs and we hear from the distance a little voice...ok 200. We look up to the top of the wall and see this little head over the edge and we say "you bring it down here then". So the little thing runs down the stairs to us with the jacket and the transaction takes place. Yippee! Sheryl has a new beautiful jacket.

We finish the day with a lazy beer or two on the top terrace of the Edinburgh Bar, eye level with the top of the wall so we watch others walking or cycling around.

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Photos

Lisa's pooped
It's very hard to ride a bicycle on cobblestones

The golden buddha
....well behind me anyway.

Bicycle repair.
Cycling on cobblestones can be noisy with a loose guard.

THE transaction.
Everyone happy in the end of this exchange.

Looks like a train wreck...
but only playing around

Sheryl and Lisa
they're nuts but great friends.

Comments

[Jean Happyskipper Marcotte]

You finally joined the Cycling community
Hello Lynne, You finally joined the great family of bikers. Bravo! Hope everything went well. I'll be keeping in touch thru your blog. Jean