My new favorite city

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After the airplane arrived and we checked into the hotel, we visited the Forest of Stone Steles, which is a Confucian temple containing many stones carved with Chinese classics. It was very impressive. I could have stayed there and admired it for a long time, but our tour guide, Henry, corralled us with his stuffed smurf on a stick (so we can find him in crowds) and took us up the Xian city wall.

At the top of the wall we rented bikes for 20 kuai each. That is less than 3 dollars. Ryan and Professor Johnson checked out a tandem bike, which was hilarious. They almost ran into another tandem bike, which cause a traffic jam. The 8.6 mile ride around the whole wall was an endorphin rush. After sitting all day, it was perfect. We laughed a lot. And when we returned to our starting point the sun was just setting and the Christmas lights and lanterns were all lighting up. It was beautiful.

We had Muslim hotpot for dinner: our best meal yet. Each of us had a personal hotpot with beef broth and a few flavorful vegetables. They placed raw noodles, meat, and veggies on the table and had us mix our own dipping sauce. I ate so much! I hope we have a chance to eat that again.

A group of us went out in the evening. We started at a bar called the Back Nook Bar, at which a Chinese hipster band was playing live. Groups of Chinese couples were playing drinking games and we were the only westerners there. I ordered a daquiri, hoping for something sweet. They gave me hard liquor that tasted faintly of bubblegum. I traded with Sara(h) for her screwdriver, which she also hadn't ordered. I still had trouble drinking that.

The smoke started to burn our eyes, so we left and went to a club called Fantasy. The name put us off a little, but we found a billboard in the pedestrian underpass advertising "Asobi," a group of Korean cross dressers/performers. This is what we found, along with scores of wimpy policemen in helmets and a tightly packed dance floor. The group performed Lady Gaga. A group of drunk Chinese men and one girl started dancing around us. The girl tried to tell me something... but it was too loud. She hugged all of us and shook our hands. We were all seperated. Ryan and I decided to leave everyone else there, but couldn't figure out how to get back to the hotel. Eventually we took a cab, and discovered that the hotel had been only a block or two down, across the street. Somehow everyone else got back before us and they were waiting in the lobby.

Xian has a much more relaxed feel than Beijing. I like it a lot.

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Photos

Hotel room
in Xian.

Fountain
at the Confucian temple.

Ancient texts
carved in stone.

Coffin
I want my coffin to look like this.

Comments

[Michelle]

Love your pictures. You sure are in the middle of a great life experience.