xi'an, day #1.

i have no recollection of what happened yesterday, since i was stuck on a train to xi’an in the afternoon.  john and i watched a dvd that we bought here and that is probably not a legal copy.  well, we almost watched the movie.  my computer ran out of battery with about twenty minutes left of the flick so we were left hanging.  i’m assuming that we will finish it sometime?

sidenote:  riding the train is awkward.  people stare at you a lot.  john felt especially awkward because we were playing super stick-man golf, and i get really angry when i lose, so imade him kiss me after each hole so that i wouldn’t get mad at him for beating me.  oh yes, people were staring.  i’m sure they thought we were nuts.

xi’an!  xi’an is definitely a tourist spot.  they charged us up the wazoo for anything and everything they could.  it costs money to go inside a temple if you are white.  honestly, i am annoyed.  so we ignored anyone who wanted our money and only listened to those people who had no way to benefit from the information they were giving us {aka our hostel reception desk}.  after getting to the hostel, we found the cheapest way to the terra cotta warriors {7 rmb, or about $1.11 u.s.} and got on the bus. 

once we got to the terra cotta warriors, we bought two student tickets.  then we walked about two miles to the entrance.  they wouldn’t accept our tickets, however, because we didn’t have my student i.d. so we had to walk all the way back to the ticket counter, buy regular tickets, and hike all the way back up to the entrance.  they also charged me 1 yuan to pee in their stinky, poopy bathroom.  {don’t even get me started on the bathroom habits of the Chinese}.  honestly, these people.

the warriors were well worth it!  there are about 8,000 uncovered terra-cotta figures that you can see, but there is a whole city that the emperor had built for himself in the afterlife.  in addition to each soldier having different clothing, hair, and features, they each had a perfectly-preserved weapon.  there were also chariots and terra-cotta horses buried, and many pits where live animals were buried {such as a real-live horse buried in an underground stable}.  over 100,000 workers died completing the project, and when he died, the emperor’s concubines and close loyal subjects were killed and buried with him.  seriously, this dude was crazy.  but he also unified china in about 200 b.c. so, you know, he’s also pretty cool.  

after seeing one of the top five sites we’ve seen so far on this trip, we got ripped off eating at some restaurant on our way out.  they had an English menu with jacked-up prices, specifically for tourists.  i talked them down a few dollars, but really, we were so hungry that we didn’t care.

on the way home, the bus driver decided to stop the bus and honk at anyone who looked remotely like they might need a ride.  then his partner in crime {some lady who gathered the money} would yell in chinese at them.  aka it took forever to get home.  {i think they wanted more passengers so they could get more money?}

does it sound like I hated xi’an?  because truthfully it is probably my least favorite city that we have visited in china.  but, I loved muslim street.

muslim street was a big food/shopping area in the middle of xi’an.  there are a lot of chinese muslims there, and that’s how it got its name.  they had yummy fried sweet-potato things, a beef quesadilla that was good, meat skewers, and something called “baked gluten”.  i liked everything but the baked gluten.  and i am seriously hankering for some raw vegetables, because my diet for the past seven weeks has consisted of meat and carbs with the occasional fruit.  this street was totally the kind of thing that john and i like to do at night, so i’m sure we will go back in the near future….