We arrived in Xi'an to a smoggy, foggy, froggy morning. The area outside the train station was packed with people and had a slightly seedy feel. We headed straight to our hotel, Skytel, and fortunately our rooms were ready. The hotel was a bit nicer than the one in Beijing, but the beds were just as hard!
After freshening up, we headed out for a walk with our group. The hotel was just down the street from the Bell Tower and another few blocks to the Muslim Quarter. Strolling through the latter reminded me of being in Turkey, only not quite so Turkish. :-) It was a great place for people watching. I posed in a family photo with some Chinese tourists and then got a couple of my favorite shots of the trip of their adorable young daughter (this one and the next):
http://kbutler1122.zenfolio.com/p166...eb5c#h4ca6eb1e
That afternoon Julie and I went by taxi with one other tour member to the Wild Goose Pagoda - a Buddhist shrine. At the end we got to try out hand at calligraphy, and an expert in the shop made my name (for free) in Chinese characters. Afterwards, we experienced the same problem others have mentioned, i.e., we had a terrible time finding a taxi that would take us back to our hotel. Even the empty ones would pass right by. Finally, we snagged one and got back in time to relax before the dumpling banquet.
I showered and upon opening the curtain was surprised to see a perfect fog-free square in the middle of the mirror. It was an eerie feeling - like someone was watching me. Anyone else notice such mirrors in Chinese hotels? This was the only hotel we stayed in that had such a thing. I mentioned it to Julie and she thought it was cool that they kept part of the mirror from fogging up. It made me paranoid.
In the evening, we took tuk-tuks to a dumpling banquet. I enjoyed the former more than the latter. The tuk-tuks in Xi'an are quite an experience - zipping in and out among the rest of the traffic. They reminded me of a little bee buzzing about the bigger cars, trucks, and buses. The banquet was too touristy for my taste. The food was so-so (I'm not a big dumpling fan anyway), and the show was kind of corny. Not as good as the Kung Fu show we saw in Beiijing.
Afterward, it was starting to rain, so we grabbed another tuk-tuk and headed back to the room. Julie went out for drinks with a few of the others, and I went straight to bed.
Tomorrow: the Terra Cotta Warriors.
