Adventures in Xi'An

So, I'll start with my account of the week. I missed my computer!!! Not for the explicit reason of it being technology. I missed it because without it, I could not get in contact with the people that I care about the most. This is terribly frustrating for me and it keeps reminding me that I am in another country half a world away. Okay, with that said, the trip was great fun. It was a blast to get out of Beijing and start actually accomplishing things that I want to do here in China. It started off a little rocky just because getting 8 people on one schedule and maneuvering around a city as big as Beijing is tough to do. So we started off a little late but managed to everything that we needed to do on time. (i.e. Getting to the station and eating and boarding.) We arrived at this train station in Beijing, and OH MY GOSH!!! it is huge. Turns out that it is supposed to be the single largest train station in the world. Now, I don't know if that is by size or by quantity of people shuffled through there. But either way, both were impressive. We sat there and took a bunch of photos just of the train station before finding a McDonald's to eat. (I'm not the largest fan of McD's in the first place and even less so that I'm in a foreign country. But this is what happens when the majority wins.) So we make it into the train station and onto our train in plenty of time. This is the first time that I have ever been on a sleeper train so I was a little scared of 2 things. The first was what they looked like and the second was the quality of the trains. Things in China have been known to not be built for sturdiness as much as quantity. Well it turns out that both were good. The compartments were, by no means, spacious, but they were also not overly cramped. Perhaps I've been in China for too long, who knows. I'll attach a photo to show you. (I think I'll send two emails so that I can send you all of the photos that I want to) My group was all on middle and top bunks and it was actually really fun. We chatted for a bit with the two Chinese women below us and we broke some bread together. It was pleasant.
These trains are rigid though. They arrive on time, they leave on time. When they say that the lights will go out at 10, they mean it! Not 10:01. Not 9:59. And they come on in the same fashion at 6:30. It was really funny. So, as 10:30 rolled around, in the dark, I decided to go to sleep on my hard sleeper. It sounds a lot worse than it really is. The beds were actually quite comfortable. There are four categories, hard and soft sleepers and hard and soft seats. the latter two are just no fun at all, from what I can tell. When we woke and arrived, we were super disoriented, as it was 6:30 in the morning but still managed to find our way out of the station and on to the bus that would take us to the hostel. (I'm trying to organize my thoughts in a way that you can comprehend, so forgive me if it's jumbled...it's kind of a mess up here).
The day that we arrived was mildly depressing. The city was shrouded by rain clouds that threatened to burst at any minute. Also, the city seemed incredibly daunting due to the massive wall built around the city. It was so crazy to see a wall like that. (I still haven't been to the great wall yet.) But that seems to be a recurring theme with the Chinese..."Oh someone is coming! Let's build a wall" My thoughts were, how do you stop them from invading, or whatever, until you've completed your wall? It's not as if they will stay there and wait for construction to be over?! At any rate, we made it to the hostel and were very pleased with the accommodations. I kind of knew what to expect since I had stayed in a bunch of hostels prior to that and I was the one who found and booked the hostel. :) I like to know where I'm sleeping.
The Hostel that we stayed in had a pretty sweet setup. A full service restaurant(three meals and snacks), 3 separate lounge and patio areas, a downstairs bar, and some help planning trips to cool places around the city, were all things that this particular hostel offered. It only cost about 40 RMB per night ($6). I LOVE the hostel environment. I really enjoy the opportunity to meet new people and hear their stories. Everyone has something interesting about them and there is always someone who wants to hear it.
We let our stuff rest in the hostel while we took to the streets almost immediately upon arrival, after breakfast and a shower. The first day we kind of wandered around looking at the city. We found this cool place called the muslim quarter that was really pretty and had some beautiful architecture. We also found our way to this museum of stone artifacts. That one was probably the coolest up to that time. It housed a bunch of old stone carvings of letters and thoughts and ideas of Confucious (sp?). It was some cool stuff. Mostly interesting because of the Chinese written language, itself, being carved elegantly into stone. Some were big, some were small. That has got to be a deep thought to take the time to chisel i out on a piece of stone. :)
I forgot to tell you this. Remember that super sweet playlist that I was making for this trip? Well, I didn't get to listen to it on the way there because my headphones broke!! :( It was soooo sad because I was ready to get pumped for Xi'An and I couldn't. I like to listen to music while I'm walking around towns too and I couldn't. so, I had to go and buy some more to last me those few days until I got back here to my spare pair.
After all of the walking around, we all made it back to the hostel to chill out and take in the hostel life for the evening.The restaurant was full of people drinking and talking about their days so we joined in. I tend to drift towards the people that I don't know moreso that drift inward to my group of friends. Maybe because I feel like we are ALL friends because we are hostelers. I tend to not even miss a beat, I act like we're old friends. So needless to say, I met a bunch of cool people from all over the place that were traveling through China. They told us about some cool things that they had already done and some other knowledge that they had just attained. After the restaurant closed, we all shuffled to the downstairs bar that was Quite entertaining! It tends to be a party spot because the hostel opens in up to the city through an entrance on the street. So we sat around and enjoyed the company of others.
I'm trying this not drinking alcohol thing for a little while. Not for any particular reason. I'm just a little tired of it. I normally drink in moderation and I think that there is nothing wrong with it. But I am a little tired of it. This past month, I tried only drinking water. I almost made it. I had some fruit juice on the last couple of days. So I sat with my water and hung out until about 11:30 or so when I decided it was time to go back to the room because I was tired and we had an early day the next day.
(If at this point, you're bored...you can skip ahead! haha, I'll include an asterisk when it gets "good" again)
The next day, we got up early to go and find the terra-cotta warriors. That's right, I saw them. The problem is, they turned out to be a pretty big disappointment. It's something that you have to see but it's not something that you need to see more than once. I think that the problem is that the media and television play up the warriors more than they should. So it was kind of a let down. The site is split into 3 pits and an exhibition area...Well, the first pit we went into, Pit 2, was medium sized...but there were no warrior. They told us all about how there were a bunch under the dirt that they couldn't open because some guy, out of spite, came in and stole all of their weapons and burned the place...so excavating them would ruin them further. That stunk! Then the second Pit that we went into, Pit 3, was so tiny that it was barely worth seeing. There were hardly any warriors in there at all...maybe 30 or so...So we took our photos and heard about the history then moved on. Now, they have said that the last pit(1st pit) is the most magnificent. It is the one that they are still excavating. And it is supposed to have about 7000 soldiers and horses in there. Well, That may be true, but I did not see it. There were about 1500 or so. That's a liberal guess. Anywho, the concept itself, is AWESOME!!! This guy, who only ruled for 50 or so years, didn't even have an heir that I can remember. He decided to build an army of people to keep him safe in the afterlife. This army is about 1.5K away from his ACTUAL tomb. But, not only that, he decreed that all of his concubines and the workers would be buried with him. (That part was less awesome.) He ended up killing about 760,000 people! Crazy, huh? YES!
After the warriors, we made our way back to the City to go to the hostel. That night, I went straight to the room to chill after I ate some dinner. I have been reading the "Three Cups of Tea" Book and legitimately cannot put it down.
*The next day we had scheduled our trip to Hua Shan, one of the five sacred mountains of Daoism. This is literally a Kung Fu mountain. It is said that Kung Fu masters would meet each other on the mountain to do battle. It could be a myth though. Any way, the mountain has 4 monastery/dojo places that we saw on our route. It started out kind of strange because we did not get up early enough to make the bus that would take us to the mountain (left the station at 8AM) We had to wait for the 9:50 train, not too bad. So we got our tickets and walked around for a bit before finding our terminal to prepare ourselves for this train ride. This one was NOT quite as smooth as the other one. We purchased some hard sitter/standing room seats for 20RMB and honestly, you get what you pay for. The lower end tickets are dreadful. There is no where to sit, people spit and throw their stuff everywhere. I thought that I had found a seat when I got on (we were all on different cars) I used my limited Mandarin skills to ask and thought that I got that it was available. Apparently I was mistaken. A burly Asian man came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder, telling me to get up... So I did, sheepishly. Luckily, at this time, some of my friends had had the same luck and we just stood there looking American while the train started to move. After a minute or two, Mark and I decided to just try to figure this out. (Adam left to go find his gf) We eventually fought our way to the back of the train where we found a few legitimately open seats and took them with pride. Problem two arose 2 hours later when we got off. We found ourselves, not at the train station near the base of the mountain where we wanted to be, but in a rickety town 30 minutes away. As soon as they saw us, a bunch of "shady/gray" cab drivers came up to get us to where ever we wanted to go...for a fee, of course. One man, the pushiest of all, but also strangely polite managed to get us into his car after much prostrating from both parties. We finally make it to the base of the mountain and we are super excited!!! But, by this time, the time we had allotted to climb the mountain is gone so we make the decision to ride the cable car up and then hike down. Turns out, this was a great idea. Tell you why in a bit. Problem 3 arose after our cable car decision when we realized that it was flippin' expensive to do that. So we pooled our money and made it possible for all of those that were there. The ride up the mountain was beautiful, albeit brief (10 minutes or so). We found out quickly that some of out party were deathly afraid of heights and dangling from an unsteady cable car stabbed at their nerves. Through much coddling, a little making fun, and some "it's almost over" or "you're doing great"...and maybe one or two, "OH NO!!!! WHAT WHAT?!?!...oh Nothing.", we made it to the top. we joked about having conquered the mountain and set out to explore the four separate peaks. These were some of the most beautiful scenes that I had ever seen. The camera that I was using just seemed inadequate, incapable of capturing the beauty that I was seeing, so I put it away. The mountain that we were on was steep and it was surrounded, literally, by mountains on all sides. Each mountain was more unique than the one before it. We stayed up there for so long...I just wanted to sit and enjoy it but others were so intent on seeing more and more. We found a "sacred" Kung Fu stone on the hill. We rubbed it and were instantly endowed with Kung Fu mastery. No but really, we took some cool "Kung Fu" poses next to it. Bunches of fun. When it came time to descend the peak, we realized that it was a great idea that we did not try to climb it in one day.
The first 2K that we faced, which would have been the last 2K of the climb were thin stairs straight down. Looking down the side of that mountain was so scary. I'm getting a knot in my stomach just thinking about it. But being the experience outdoorsman that I am. (LQTM*) I stayed cool under the pressure and tried to guide the others down the steep inclines. Thank God we all made it down the first section in one piece. The next 2K were still stairs they were just a little less steep and had landings where a person could rest and look out on the scenery. We were descending the mountain just as the sun was going down and it was very pretty thing to see. Luckily, the last 2K was just a steep slope. Honestly though, after all of the stairs, this was very difficult. Most of us are still sore right now! (2 days later) When we finally made it down the slope, we decided that that train we came in on would not work again so we decided to upgrade to the bullet train. We made it to the station early and saw that there were some people outside doing Tai Ji. I was super excited because apparently you can just jump in whenever you want. So I got my roommate Adam and our friend Sherry to come do some with me. It's soooooo relaxing. I want to study it while I'm here. For about an hour and a half after that we played games like categories and some other ones that our Chinese friend knows. We were exhausted but still in high spirits.
When we finally made it to back to the hostel after that long day, I hung out with the people downstairs to swap stories for about 40 minutes before having to go upstairs and pass out. :)
The Final day we were there, before our train back at 6PM, we went to this Museum that showcased the history of Shaanxi province and mostly stuff about the Tang dynasty. A lot of the artifacts were very beautiful and very old. I must be honest, I am not 100% into artifacts or sculptures. I am more of a paintings person. Luckily for me, there was a showcase of Chinese art in the museum too. of course I went in and spent the majority of my time taken away by the paintings. There was one in particular that made me want to melt. Had I the money, I would have purchased it then and there. It was a painting of a young tibetan woman laying in the grass in traditional Tibetan clothing. It was not in full color but more in black and white with moderate accents of color here and there. Her hair was flowing with the wind, as was the grass. The whole piece was wonderful but none of that was what grabbed me. It was her eyes that made me need her. Her eyes showed of pain and work. They were aged beyond their years through, what seemed to me, as a tough life. But they were beautiful in all respects.
After all of that, we got our bags and got back on the train to come back to Beijing. We arrived here this morning at 6AM in the same fashion that we left. I am fairly tired, but it seems that the session starts tomorrow. :) So I guess I'm going to be ready.