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Published: January 18th 2009
Pardon me, have you seen my head?
One of the many unfortunate headless warriorsWe arrived in Xi'an after our first of many overnight train journeys, and it was wet and miserable weather, and it was to stay like that for the whole 3 days we were there! How unfortunate! Xi'an was fantastic, despite the weather, every morning we were woken up with Beethoven being played at the primary school directly opposite our hotel, and it would be on repeat for about 20 minutes and played at least 3 times a day. Why? Who can say. We spent most of the day roaming the streets, shopping at the antique markets, the Muslim Quarter and the first night we discovered HOT POT. Oh food Gods of China thank you for giving us hotpot!!! Why had I never had this before? Why with countless numbers of Chinese immigrants in Sydney had I never discovered hotpot before? Love. Love. Love.
We hit the Terracotta Warriors first thing next morning and they were fantastic. It's everything you see in pictures so I'm not going to explain it. Our little local guide was hilarious, she would not stop talking and she spoke at 100m/h, my head was spinning with random bits of information I couldn't quite put together! She took
Bright Big Eyed Faces!
Awesomely painted masks found at the antique quarter in Xi'an. us for lunch at a local family's house about a 10 minute walk from the Warriors Museum. They put on a huge feast for us in their small dining room. Their son who must have been about 2 was running around the house in what our tour leader dubbed as "shit-splits", pants that have a great big hole from the backside of their bum to the front, making for convenient but slightly messy toilet training. Later on we saw a few ladies with their babies decked out in shit-splits who would hold their baby over the side of the road to let it do it's business! Fantastic and so eco-friendly! Haha. I just don't understand how the mothers know when the baby is going to go? Motherly instinct? Although, later on in the trip I did witness a shit-splitted baby poop all over his mother. Awkward!
It was dumpling night that night and on the way we discovered WALMART! I have never been to Walmart in my life and how strange for me to experience it in China before the US! I could have spent hours there, we headed for the seafood section where they had tiny crabs wrapped in
The Silk Road
The Monument representing the beginning of the ancient Silk Road route, and the start of our awesome adventure! bows on a sale table, and in a corner they had tanks full of live fish, turtles and bullfrogs! We passed the ladies sanitary row and decided to stock up for the road, and a sales assistant was standing there with a massive album that she brought over for me to look through. Inside were samples of pads in all shapes and sizes and she proceeded to tell me all the features and benefits of each one in flawless English. Talk about service, albeit slightly strange.
Anyway, we made it to the hostel for dumpling and free beer night! All the ingredients were pre-made, we had the job of putting the stuffing into the dough, folding it over and pressing the edges together to hold it in. Voila! Perfect dumplings. They were then cooked for us and brought over with some delicious dipping sauce for us to enjoy. We went downstairs to discover a small but cool little hostel nightclub and I made a beeline for the bar after seeing signs advertising Jagerbombs for 15 yuan. That's around $3. THREE DOLLARS!!!! I pay $12 for them at my local and I live in Western Sydney. So I may have had
Dumplings!
Yummy! Before being cooked.... a few. And the bartender was amazing. He kept suggesting all these other beverages, rice wine, flaming sambucas, and hell yes I was more than happy to try them. He gave me free drinks too - we totally bonded.
Xi'an was a fantastic place to visit, I'd love to come back when the weathers less ...... wet. But now we have a 15 hour train journey to Jiayuguan to look forward to! BRING IT!
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