Advertisement
Published: April 29th 2006
Edit Blog Post
At the Huaching Hot Springs
Nice park/natural spa. You can get a massage and relax in the natural hot springs or be cheap bastards like us and just take a photo to say you were there We're now in Xian. and are now leaving Xian. Got here 2 days ago and the only train we could get to our next destination, Shanghai, was for today so we're forced to high-tail it out. Pretty nice town-- large-- I think they say population of 4 million. We've seen a few familiar faces from Beijing so it looks to be we're all rolling the same number on the dice.
The last day in Beijing was spent at the Antique Flea Market where they have the absolute best deals on artwork, antiques, sculptures and knicknacks with no need to haggle...though I still tried to. They had these little red books of quotes and speeches by Mao that I had seen all around (the "Little Red Book") and I thought it'd be an interesting read. At the market, this lady's first offering was 40Y. I had seen these same books at the Forbidden Palace for 10Y at the gift shop, so hell if I'm going to pay more than that amount right? I countered with a meager 5Y expecting to meet at 10 but she scolded me something bad, yanked the calculator from my hand and sat back down. But Carolee did
The TerraCotta Warriors
...or is this the line for the Mao Mausoleum? We've taken so many pictures... alright-- got some paintings and scrolls for about 15-20 Yuan each (for those who eventually receive these as gifts, realize it's the thought that counts-- and the fact that we are now carrying a 1/3 more of what our original luggage size used to be and will probably end up spending 4 times as much as the purchase price when we decide to ship it all home).
So we finally broke down and had McDonald's. Yeah, supposedly its not cool to eat McUSA when abroad but, you know, we wouldnt expect visitors to the US to eat hamburgers and apple pie everyday. And we kept it pseudo real by getting the China-exclusive items- shanghai triple burger, shrimp nuggets and taro pie. Actually good stuff.
But we were done with Beijing and took the 13 hour overnight train to Xian. This was our first trip of what is to be many on the Chinese rail system and were surprisingly pleased. Our sleeper car had 6 bunks to a room and they were immaculate. Maybe not so comfortable if you're over 5'8", but good enough for us. Even the toilets were pristine. If only the rest of our travels promise to be this good...
So now we're in Xi'an. The first day was interesting. During the day we just biked around and in the evening got wrangled in to a basketball game, organized by our hostel. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but we had just returned our bikes and were convinced/coerced to play at the new hostel they had just built across town. We thought it was just going to be a casual shoot-around session to break in the new facility. But when we arrived we were paraded off the van straight into this procession with loudspeaker and cheering squads. there was a full scorers table and scoreboard and crowd of about 100. We had absolutely no idea what was going on. The opposing team were "the heads of the Xian University Fine Arts Department" vs us, the "International Friends Youth League". These guys were serious-- with uniforms and practice drills and all. After awhile, we kinda figured they had just wanted to put together a rag-tag team of westerners to trample on. Most of our team were in sandals and a majority of them had just come back from a full day of touring, and most importantly had never picked up a basketball in their lives. We were humiliated the first half (they played full 12 minutes quarters!......"oh come join us, it's only for fun"). Best part was when Carolee got in, the only female throughout the game and within 2 minutes made her first shot attempt. The crowd went Buck. Wild. and then we started getting it together and after our teammates learned the rules: that you cant use your feet (Swiss guy) and cant push on defense (UK guy) we finally came back to win by 2. The university was a bit disappointed, but they were cool about it and had us all join them in a party with free dumplings and beer. This unexpected stuff is the best thing about traveling.
So the big draw to Xi'an is the Terracotta Warriors-- a massive tomb of emperor Qin Shihuang, who began building it for himself (with the help of some 720,000 laborers) when he took the throne at 13. Took 40 years to complete and its a doozy. There are 7000 slightly larger than life-size clay statues in all and it was all undiscovered until the mid-70s when a group of farmers digging for water came across these soldiers. Pretty damn impressive, especially when they say there are still many more to be discovered after they complete the excavation.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.094s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0631s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Lauren
non-member comment
Damn hysterical
I laughed out loud at your basketball game. Way to go Carolee! Lovin' the Swiss and UK guys. Glad you guys are having a good time and everything is working out so well. Miss ya!