No no, lose money! or, my trip to Xi'an

The last time I wrote, I was leaving to go to Xi'an on Tuesday morning. Seeing as I am writing this on Sunday, it's clear that I got there and back in one piece. The trip certainly was interesting though...

We flew from Shanghai to Xi'an, which was about a 2-hour flight. The plane (Hainan airlines?) was surprisingly nice, as was the hotel we arrived at in Xi'an. It was really too nice...we would have been happy with a much crappier hotel. We had a suite that includeda living room, 2 tvs, and a little beverage center where we made tea every day. The hotel also included breakfast every day, which was awesome. I had missed cold cereal SO MUCH. However, not everything about the hotel was totally amazing. Our first night there, we were hungry for some non-Chinese food. The directory for all the floors in the hotel that was posted in the lobby had mentioned "Marco Polo Western Restaurant" on floor 5. So, we put our stuff down, relaxed a bit, and then decided to head downstairs to check it out. Of course, we get there and find out that not only does the restaurant not have an English menu, it also sort of doesn't seem to exist anymore. Perhaps a Chinese restaurant took over? It's still unclear. Also, the people at the front desk couldn't direct us to a restaurant with an English menu. Our second night in Xi'an, this was our dinner:

But enough about the food. Our second day there, our travel agent had planned a tour for us. We went to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, the Huanqing Springs, and to see the terracotta warriors. The Big Wild Goose Pagoda is a little bit south of the city, and is a beautiful buddhist temple. Here are some pictures that from there: While we were at the Pagoda, I had the first of many AWKWARD encounters with Chinese tourists. So, I'd heard that in some areas of China they don't get a lot of Westerners. I'd also heard about the desire of some of these small-city/country folk to have their photographs taken with "white" people. But I didn't really expect it.

However, after I had just posed for the first picture there in front of the pagoda, a young Chinese boy of probably 9 or 10 came up to me and asked me if he could be in a picture with me. I was completely taken aback, but agreed. Shannon started to walk away, but the boy's parents (who were overjoyed at this kodak moment) motioned for her to get back into the picture. The boy's younger sister stood on the other side of Shannon, and the boy looked up at me and said, in a sort of creepy, awkward voice, "You are soooo beautiful." I smiled really big for the camera, probably gave a peace sign, and walked away as he got confused on how to say 'thank you' and instead told me "you're welcome." It was totally weird.

However, that was only the first of the probably 20+ pictures with Chinese people that we posed for during our stay in Xi'an. I guess 3 pretty American girls IS sort of interesting...but I really didn't anticipate the paperazzi coming out once we stepped outside of Shanghai. My other favorite was a little old man (who i think told us he was 87). I clearly wasn't ready for this picture to be taken... So, the tour was good...the terracotta warriors were impressive but overrated. Here is one shot out of about 8 billion that I took:

There is a lot more to say, but I am exhausted and my birthday is tomorrow...so this is all I'm going to give you for the time being.