Hanging around Xi’an

May 8, 2011

When we awoke Sunday morning it was hot in our room and noisy in the courtyard. This effectively killed any yearnings to stay in bed all day, so we checked out of our room, left our bags behind the front counter, and left for the day to explore Xi’an a little on foot. It was another blazingly hot day (made worse by my continuing fever) so we walked slowly and stayed on the shady sides of streets. We ended up in the Muslim Quarter, which is known for its good trinket shopping. I spent most of my time loitering in stalls with oscillating fans or hanging out under shade-providing trees. 

Finches for sale in Xian: decoration, pet, or food?

After walking for a bit, we stumbled upon a shadow puppet museum/theater. Shadow puppetry originated in Xi’an over 2000 years ago! We were invited in to see a show, and I have to admit I was pretty skeptical about how enjoyable the experience would be. I was sick, hot as hell, and have never been a fan of puppets. Megan and Ashley were really excited, however, so I relented (a couple of refreshing adult beverages helped with this) and we were ushered in to the small theater. I remained a skeptic for the first several minutes of the show, but it actually turned out to be pretty cool!

After the show, we wandered and shopped a little bit more, but were really dragging after our whirlwind tour of the sights the last few days. So even though we had several more hours to kill before we needed to head to the airport for our flight back to Beijing, we decided to call it quits on our Xi’an tour. We headed back to the hostel to hang out for the rest of the afternoon.

Hanging out at the hostel

The hostel staff advised us to get to the Xi’an airport about 2 hours early. Not knowing what to expect, we decided to take their advice. We hired a taxi to take us to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Checking in turned out to be a breeze, so we were there way, way too early. Still, we were in a well air conditioned place, so it wasn’t a horrible spot for our tired butts to hang out in for a bit. Sadly, it wasn’t long before we found out our flight to Beijing was going to be delayed. From the best we could gather, there had been some weather somewhere that screwed up air traffic control. Our flight was one of the last flights of the evening and we were already going to be getting to Beijing quite late, so we did our best to wait patiently, fervently hoping we would just get to Beijing sometime that night and not have to spend the night in the Xi’an airport.

We fit the requirements

I was feeling quite ill at that point and made several trips to the bathroom just to splash cold water on my face and neck. I wanted more than anything to be lying down in a bed somewhere! So we were very happy when our flight took off only 1.5 hours late! It turned out to be a fairly unpleasant flight – quite bad, but in a different way than my epic New York-Beijing flight. I spent the entire flight sweating like crazy and turning various shades of green. I have never before even come close to throwing up on a plane, but for this flight, I spent most of the time with a barf bag in my hands, ready to use if needed. There was a little bit of turbulence, but nothing too extreme, so I blame most of my problem on pre-existing sickness and exhaustion. Ashley suffered on the flight as well. She had some head congestion and one of her ears just wouldn’t pop – so while I held my stomach and moaned, Ash held the side of her head and tried not to cry. Thankfully, we managed to land without Ash’s head exploding or me barfing all over the place.

From the Beijing airport, we hailed a taxi to make two stops. We first headed towards downtown to pick up our large bags from the lobby of the Drum Tower hostel. We then headed back out to the boonies to check in to our new hotel where we would be staying for the acupuncture course. By the time we got to our new hotel, it was sometime around 2 am and we were very eager to climb into bed!

Sadly, our check in experience at the hotel was a nightmare. The staff did not speak English. (Yes, we were in China and all, but this hotel was chosen for us as a good place for 25 English-speaking Americans to stay. You’d think English would have been on the menu.) So fine, we’ll use our phrase books and the smattering of Mandarin we’d picked up over the last week. Except the front desk girl was also dumb as a box of rocks. We went round and round and round, trying to explain that we had a reservation already. Unfortunately, we didn’t know what name our rooms were reserved under: Our names? Our school? Our faculty advisor? Our Chinese host? We finally had a light bulb go off when we mentioned the name of the other student I would be sharing a room with during the course. She had checked in earlier that evening. So they took my information and gave me a key to my room. It was very late, and I didn’t want to wake my roomie, but we really needed help to get Megan and Ashley’s room sorted out. So I trekked off to my room to wake my roommate. Except my key wouldn’t work in the door. So I went back down to the front desk for help. The door man went back up to my room with me but he couldn’t get my key to work either. So he woke up the housekeeping man; his key also didn’t work! So we tried knocking on the door and calling the room – no response from my roommate, who the next day said she didn’t hear a thing!

Back down at the front desk, we finally accepted we weren’t going to get the whole “we have a reservation” thing through to the staff for Megan and Ashley’s room, and although I had a room, I couldn’t get in. So we booked one room for one night, and all three of us would sleep there. This baffled the staff, as the rooms are equipped with two single beds – not designed for an extra person. After repeated rounds of pantomiming sleeping on the floor and requesting an extra blanket and pillow, they finally got it and left the three of us in peace.

By then, it was 3:30 in the morning and we had no idea what time we needed to show up in the lobby for school the next day. We checked our email and our Chinese phones for messages from anyone in our school group, but there was no information to be found. So I slid a note under my roommate’s impenetrable door to wake us when she got up. To be safe, we set an alarm for 7 am. Utterly exhausted, we turned out the lights and conked out for our 3 hours of sleep.

Terracotta Army

May 7, 2011

Although the Xi’an hostel was fun and picturesque, it did not provide the best sleeping conditions.  The adorable courtyards were adorable – so adorable that they were where everyone wanted to hang out drinking beers late into the night, and hang out drinking coffee early in the morning.  The window in our room opened into one of these courtyards and it wouldn’t close all the way, so all the chitchat noise came right in. Even if the window had closed all the way, however, we probably would have left it open since our air conditioning was not working. So it seemed the hours of sleep in the hostel would be from about 2am until about 7am.  I woke up tired and still feeling feverish.

Adorable courtyard at the Shuyuan International Youth Hostel

We boarded a tour bus for the hour-long ride for the day’s adventure. It was very, very, very hot when we got off the bus and found our way to the ticket office of the Terracotta Soldiers. The entrance to buy tickets was very far from the actual entrance to see the soldiers. We considering riding the available golf cart shuttles to the entrance, but the price seemed too steep (something like 10Y, which is less than $2 – funny how that seemed expensive!) and after all, we were able-bodied young people. Even if I was in the early stages of dying from the Chinese Exotic Bird Influenza Plague Pox.  It was also very sunny, so we were happy to see the soldiers were housed in buildings. These buildings, in effect, turned out to be like moderately climate-controlled airplane hangars. They were not as hot as outside, but they were not a cool and comfortable 78 degrees, either. I’d guess the temperature was somewhere in the mid 80’s and quite stuffy. But at least we were out of the sun.

Hey you, with the flu! Walk a bajillion miles this way to the entrance.

Sunny and smoggy

There are three pits of excavated soldiers at the site.  We opted to see them in “reverse” order, saving the biggest and best for last.  The pits were literally pits, with viewing platforms set up all along the perimeter.  Some areas had gangways that let you go out closer to the middle of the pits. It was very crowded and there were lots of tour groups pushing and shoving. I walked around in a cold sweat, looking pale and feeling faint. I think I would not have made it without my little fan. Still, everything was so amazing that even the flu couldn’t stop me from enjoying the day. 

Some statues were separated and encased in glass so we could get close up views

Still in the process of being excavated

Life-saving fan

Megan and Ashley point out the World Heritage Site sign

There were a lot of tourist groups. We were nearly crushed by this one.

The largest and most impressive pit.

Statues being cleaned up before being placed back in the pits

We took the tour bus back to the Xi’an station and then hailed a taxi to take us to a restaurant we had picked out for dinner. Our taxi driver seemed to be taking us the wrong way. And sure enough, he dropped us at a place that was not the place we requested. It turned out to be another location of the restaurant we asked for. We checked out the restaurant and just didn’t like the feel of the place, so we left. And then we walked for what felt like ages. It is very difficult/impossible to get a taxi in Xi’an unless you are at a taxi stand. We didn’t know this and were frustrated that no taxis were stopping for us. After a full day of sightseeing feeling cold, clammy, and feverish, I was just not up for a wander-around-Xi’an adventure. What a relief when we finally got back to the hostel! We sat in one of the pretty courtyards, drinking beers, gorging ourselves on delicious street food, and writing postcards to friends and family. Later in the evening, an interesting British ex-pat joined us to chat. He, Megan, and Ashley eventually got into a very deep and intellectual discussion/debate, which everyone knows is not my cup of tea. I was tired anyway, so I took my feverish self to bed while they stayed up to the wee hours of the morning discussing serious stuff like the Chinese economy.

Longmen Caves

May 6, 2011

Our hostel in Luoyang was not very interesting but it was quiet! That combined with the exhaustion of the previous day provided us a great night’s sleep. Feeling refreshed, we set off for the transit station to buy tickets for an evening bus to Xi’an. Once again, we encountered some language difficulties, but we managed to get our point across and secured tickets for the 6pm bus. That was the bus we wanted anyway, but we were glad we went early in the day since a couple of the other daily buses were already sold out. After breakfast, we packed our leftover beers into our shoulder bags and caught a taxi to the Longmen Caves.

The Longmen Caves are a collection of Buddhist carvings and statues along the banks of the Yi River, about 14km from Luoyang. There are over 2000 caves and niches and over 100,000 statues. Most of the carvings date to c. 500-600 AD. This is one of the many amazing places that I had never heard of before going to China, but after reading about it in the guide books I could not wait to go. I was particularly excited to see the largest Buddha statue, which is over 56 feet tall!

For the most part, I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. The Longmen Caves were truly awe-inspiring. I don’t understand why no one was hawking tours here when we got off the train! So much better than the Shaolin Temple, and closer to Luoyang, too!

Over 2000 niches

I got a new hat today!

Wow!

Buddha's friends

Now that's a big buddha!

We're going to remember to buy a bottle opener one of these days

Lots of little buddhas

At the Medical Prescriptions Cave

On the banks of the Yi River

Bringing beer to the park: in the running for best idea ever

We had a great day; this would remain one of my favorite places of our Chinese trip. I also got to learn a valuable lesson here: be very careful going to the squat toilets with your sunglasses loosely placed on top of your head. (And yes, I did rescue them.) We left with what we thought was plenty of time to take a cab back to the hostel to pick up our bags and then head over to the bus station. Except we ended up with the world’s slowest cab driver! It was also the only female cab driver I’ve ever had. It felt like it took forever to get back to the city! On the bright side, the slow ride gave us plenty of time to look out the window and appreciate the flowers and landscaping. Luoyang is known for its poppies, and although most of the poppies we saw were artificial, there were lots of other pretty real flowers to be seen. And ultimately, we did make it to the bus with plenty of time.

There was a little bit of confusion about which bus to board. We spent some time studying the Chinese characters on signs in the windshields and comparing them to the characters for Xi’an. This wasn’t getting us very far and eventually someone asked where we were going and herded us onto a bus. We still didn’t feel 100% confident we were on the right bus though, so asked other passengers where they were going. We ended up pointing at Xi’an on a map, and after several passengers nodded enthusiastically, we decided we were probably in the right place.

No... this isn't confusing at all!

 

Propped up with pillows on our sleeper bus

As it turned out, our bus was a sleeper bus, which was entirely unnecessary for the 4.5 hour drive. It also felt ironic after our recent train ride experience, where sleepers would have been awesome. The berths were too short for either Ashley or me to lay down flat on our backs – yet another experience where Megan was the right size for China. They were also a little uncomfortable to just sit up in. We settled into lower level bunks (there were also bunks above us) and prepared to relax for the road trip. Except there was an incredibly annoying guy who would not leave Megan alone! He was seated behind me and next to Megan. His initial communication attempts were a little loud and close, but the really bad part is that he would not give up! His first foray into conversation with Megan was begun with a really long sentence, way past our conversational Mandarin abilities. Fortunately, we had mastered “I don’t understand”; so far, this phrase either stopped people’s communication attempts entirely, switched them to very simple words and gestures, or switched them to crude English and gestures. This guy responded with a different, but equally long and complicated statement in Mandarin. Again, “I don’t understand.” So he tried something else. Over and over and over. Megan tried to just ignore him, so he started to poke her to get her attention. I flipped through the phrase book trying to find something to get him to understand. Perhaps a stern “leave me alone!”? (This was from the often mocked dating section, filled with useful sentences like, “I don’t sing and dance.”) Ultimately, the solution was for Megan to change seats. When she moved, I was nervous his attention would fall on me. I felt him peering over my shoulder several times, but I didn’t move at all, afraid any acknowledgment of him would start him up again. Our friend remained interesting throughout the trip. We had already been introduced to “I don’t need no stinkin’ headphones” from our train ride, but this guy took the cake with playing his radio loudly! Ear plugs were insufficient to block out his noise. I ended up listening to some old school Wu-tang Clan – only rap, played louder than I have ever turned up my iPod before, would drown out his music.

The rest of the bus ride was relatively non-eventful, except for witnessing some weird police activity. Not too far from Xi’an we went through a toll both and then pulled over out of the traffic lanes. A police car zoomed up with its lights flashing and circled the bus before stopping next to us. Then a large bag was removed from the bus cargo hold and transferred to the police car. Then we left. Hmmm……

When we arrived in Xi’an, our bus driver motioned for us to get off at a small bus stop on the outskirts of town. We were expecting to be dropped off at a large transit station, so this seemed a little weird. It was almost 11pm, we didn’t know where we were, and there was very little traffic. Fortunately, our bus driver was not abandoning us. He negotiated with a passing taxi to take us to our hostel.

After check-in, we were looking forward to taking advantage of some of the famous fun at the Shuyuan International Youth Hostel. Dumpling parties. Bar downstairs. Free welcome coffee at check-in. And a free beer each night! The place was definitely hopping, with lots of foreigners of all ages and nationalities hanging out. As we settled into our room, I finally admitted to myself that the hotness I’d been feeling all afternoon just might be a sign of sickness. I took my temperature, and with my fever confirmed, I opted to stay in and rest while Megan and Ashley went to the bar. I wanted to be in good shape to see the Terracotta Warriors the next day!