So we spent our extra day (Thursday) in Shanghai hanging out with Hannah Phares and watching our bootleg DVD's - I got to see star wars III which was actually a pretty good copy except that the script at the beginning was randomly in Greek or something.
So overnight train to Xi'an which took maybe 15 hrs or so. We had beds near each other in a 'hard sleeper.' In this sort of car there are groupings of 6 bunk beds open to a common corridor. Actually we found it to be quite comfy and when the lights went out at 10pm things actually completely shut down, got quiet. There were 2 Chinese men in our car that spoke English - 'Mr. Andy' and 'Mr. Sam.' Andy is a retired electrical engineer who taught himself English at some point but had never traveled out of the country while Sam was an aeronautical designer who had studied English at Uni. Definitely interesting to speak with them as they both seemed excited to practice their English. China is the first country I've been to with the exception of maybe Turkey that people really welcome you as an American. At least as far as the educated people we talk to, Chinese tend to like America. We even had Andy bashing Mao a bit at the end for poor decisions.
The countryside changed drastically overnight. We went from rice paddies to dry semiarrid looking land where the main crops are wheat and various sorts of orchards. It's been unfortunate that we are not supposed to eat raw fruits or veggies as I'd be interested to see what's growing. So we woke up and found ourselves in Xi'an, an old city with plenty of history. It was the beginning (or end depending on which direction you were traveling) of the Silk Road. The city walls are still impressive and about 14km long. After getting settled in at the hostel we walked downtown to the central bell tower and drum tower (bells in the morning, drums at night apparently). Gorged ourselves on dumplings for lunch and then wandered the area around the Great Mosque which was jam packed with food and market stands. Definitely a buyers market and a good place to practice bargaining skills. It was what one thinks of when trying to picture China - crowded streets lined with vendors and dodging bikes down the middle.
A break back at the hostel (it was hot but at least less humid then Shanghai) and then we went out again. Walked around the area of the Temple of Stone Tablets but didn't pay to get in figuring we wouldn't appreciate a bunch of tablets in Chinese. That area was packed with stands selling more artistic things - brushes, calligraphy, and the ubiquitous soapstone seals which you can get engraved with your name in Chinese. Then we hiked way the heck out to Little Goose Pagoda which was 1300 yrs old, but otherwise not incredibly impressive. Xi'an is considered a relatively small city of only 7 million, but still definitely gets hazy during the day. Dinner and hanging out back at the hostel before participating in a dumpling party and learning how to make and cook the things we've been eating.
Saturday we took a trip out to the Terra Cotta Warriors. Almost difficult to get out there and seemed to take forever. We were all a bit lethargic and blamed the beds at the hostel for being too nice and soft. The warriors were incredible to see in person - 3 pits full of half excavated artifacts. The first and largest pit has almost 6000 warriors in it, all with different faces. They keep the lights low in the buildings to preserve them and it creates quite a creepy atmosphere. After lunch we stopped by the Lingtong history museum which had some nice Chinese architecture but seemed kindof random. It was our first rainy day here. Not too bad most of the time, but it was good to have done our walking the day before. Back to the hostel to relax before a taxi to the train station. Perfect timing as we found the gate and walked to the train.
We had 'soft sleeper' this time and were split up with Ash and I in one booth and Les on one the next car down. We decided that soft sleepers are the Hilton of overnight trains - 4 people to a room that closes off from the corridor, plenty of headroom for both beds so that you can actually sit up, and a TV for each bed to watch a selection of Chinese channels. 2 random Chinese in our compartment but Les was with 3 Aussies on a holiday so we hung out and chatted with them till bedtime. A much faster train ride and we arrived this morning in Beijing at 7am. Our hostel seems in a rather interesting area, but we haven't explored much yet. We'll probably take it easy and walk around today before planning our trip to the Great Wall and which days we should allot to which sites. Hard to believe we're at our last stop in China!
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