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I feel that I need to end our China journal with a few thoughts about our experience. Overall, and despite our frustrations with Air China, we are immensely pleased that we went, as we had a truly wonderful time. Of course it was a delight seeing Christa, since she has been there almost a year. And it was a delight seeing her interact with her students - there is obvious deep affection on both sides of the relationship.

Regarding China itself - Capitalism is alive and well in The People’s Republic. The economy is red-hot, there are new modern buildings popping up everywhere. China has come a long long way in the last 30 years. My parents were among the first Westerners to visit when China first reopened to the world, in 1976. At that time there were still donkey carts on the streets of Beijing, and the people were wearing their drab blue or gray Mao jackets. Now the streets are full of new-model Nissans, Saabs, and Chevys, the people are dressed in sophisticated fashions in bright colors, and walk confidently along the streets chatting on their cell phones. Many young Chinese are quite tall, the obvious beneficiaries of better nutrition and health care than was available for their parents and grandparents. What would Chairman Mao think if he could see all that?

We had been worried about Christa traveling around by herself. We have seen that Xi’an seems as safe as a large city can be. Many small vendors keep their cash in open boxes on a table in their shops. One does need to be wary of pickpockets in crowded tourist areas and on buses, but in contrast to some other places in the world we have visited, we never once felt that we had to be worried about our physical safety.

While Bill and I were traveling to and from Xi'an, time after time strangers offered to assist us when we were obviously in need of a small bit of help - directions through the airport, translation of a flight announcement, and so on. Little things like that help make a new place a lot less intimidating.

Yes, indeed, people did stare at us. However, if we smiled and acknowledged them, we usually got a great big smile right back. We were impressed by the friendliness and good humor of most people that we met. A perfect example of this friendliness was demonstrated by the unfortunate young man involved in the infamous motorbike vs. taxi incident. The poor guy’s leg was hurt, his companion’s leg was all bruised up, his bike was broken, and yet the first thing that he said to Christa when she rushed to his side was “Where are you from?” He did not lash out in anger or frustration. He was simply worried about getting medical attention for his leg, mechanical attention for his bike, and was full of curiosity about the lady with the bright blue eyes.

We did observe people living in what we would consider extreme poverty. The smiling man and woman who sell fresh fruit and vegetables on the university campus literally live in their fruit stand. They sleep on their display tables, wrapped in blankets, covered by their large umbrellas when it rains. Such a life seems unimaginable to us. How in the world do they cope when the winter arrives? Their lives are very different from the lives of the people with the fashionable clothes and new cars. Sometimes we would walk by the fruit stand in the evening, and there they would be, relaxed, playing with their puppy, seemingly content. What had their lives been like ten, twenty years ago?

Christa is coming back to the States next week, and will be home for six months or so. She intends to return to China for another year or more following that. We sincerely hope that we will be able to return to China for another visit. It is indeed a fascinating place where we felt welcomed and comfortable. Can’t wait to go back.

Day 14

Well, this was a long day.

The school van picked us up at 8:00 am on Monday the 23rd to take us to the airport. It’s a hour’s drive to the airport, plus we had to allow time to check in, etc. Christa rode along with us.

In China, airport check-in counters are a mystery, at least to us. In the US, we are used to going to the counter that displays the logo and name of the airline. In China, all the counters look the same. We still haven’t figured out how to tell what line to get in, but Christa knows, and got us to the right place.

We got up to the window, and the first thing the clerk said was “Your flight has been canceled.” GULP! Panic! But all was not lost. We were assigned to a flight that had an earlier departure time than the original. Whew! We requested a wheelchair again. We found out on the way to China that even though information regarding our need for a wheelchair was in the computer, everyone ignored it unless reminded. One of Christa’s students wrote us a note in Chinese, explaining that we had already arranged with the airline to have a wheelchair, and one should be provided. That note came in very very handy. I am quite sure that we would not have gotten the wheelchair without it, as the clerk’s English was very limited. The clerk told us to go to Window 30 at 10:30, and the wheelchair person would meet us there.

All of that went quite smoothly, and we were off to Beijing. And sonofagun, there was a wheelchair person (a very nice young lady) there to get me. Our suitcases should have been ticketed all the way through to SFO, but they weren’t, so we had to go to the baggage claim area. We had more baggage when we left than we had when we arrived, because we were transporting home stuff for Christa. The wheelchair lady took us to get the bags, and then took us through the maze of the airport to international departures. Bless her heart, she even did the departure paperwork for us. Of course, we have no idea what she wrote on the paperwork, because she didn’t ask any questions, but hey, it worked. So we were glad. What a sweetheart!

She took us though security, and to the waiting area, and told us that she would be back for us at 3:30. We were sitting there, and sitting there, and sitting there, and after a little while a very frazzled looking lady came in, looked at us and said “San Francisco?” We said Yes, and she sighed a huge sigh of relief, and plunked herself down. She was traveling from Australia to Toronto, had multiple stops, and just had a hell of a time finding her way through the airport. We chatted a bit, and it turned out that she was really hungry. She’d already had a long day. Christa had bought us a box of Nature Valley granola bars for sustenance, so we gave the Australian lady one of the granola bar packs. She said it was the best granola bars she ever tasted. By that point, she probably would have been happy to eat sawdust. :-)

At 3:15 the announcement came that our flight was boarding, the nice wheelchair lady was nowhere to be seen, so we loaded the carry-on bags into my lap, and Bill pushed me over to the counter. Suddenly she came flying into view, and was very apologetic. She must have heard the early announcement too, and set a land-speed record coming to get us.

Another interesting fact about Air China: Even though our seat assignments were made months ago, that fact didn’t seem to matter a bit. When we got our boarding passes, we had discovered that they had assigned us to seats in different rows. The hell with that, we said, and plunked ourselves down together. Of course someone came along, and wanted to sit where Bill was. We held our ground. The stewardess wanted Bill to move, and we said NO. She asked again, and we said “Sorry, we’ve had these seat assignment since January.” Those seemed to be the magic words. Apparently Air China breaks up family groups all the time, because the stewardess handled it all like an experienced traffic cop. They had even split up a lady traveling with two little boys, one about two and one about four. In nothing flat she had it all straightened out, and everyone who needed to be together ended up together.

There were some very giggly teenage girls sitting next to us - apparently they were all going off to school in the US. One of them offered us some cookies, so we gave her one of our granola bar packs. They looked at it like they had no idea what it was, but thanked us anyway.

Around 4:00 the plane taxied out to take off. We had to wait a bit, and then we were on our way. The plane went barreling down the runway, and just when it got to the speed where we knew we were about to lift off, the pilot jammed on the brakes and reversed the engines! We all pitched forward, and something up front in First Class went crash with a sound like broken glass.

Well, that got our attention.

We all sat there, a bit stunned, with a giant collective question mark hanging in the air over our heads.

Finally, the pilot came on the radio and apologized for the abrupt stop. He explained that a warning light had come on in the final stages of takeoff, takeoff was aborted, and an evaluation had to be made. We looked out the windows, and discovered that we were surrounded by all kinds of vehicles with flashing lights on top. We knew we were going to be there for a little while when the flight crew appeared with large bottles of water and started handing out drinks.

After a while we saw a vehicle approaching with a gigantic set of airline stairs (we were in a 747)in tow. Immediately everyone jumped up, and chaos would have ensued if an authoritative man had not appeared, clapped his hands and told everyone everyone to sit down and shut up. (We don’t speak Chinese, but are quite sure that’s what he said, because that’s what happened.) Pretty soon they had us all organized - do they do this on a regular basis? - and we got off the plane. The stairs were scary - they were so tall and steep that they were wobbly. And son of a gun, there was a lady with a wheelchair waiting for me. (What would have happened if someone was on the plane who couldn’t go down the stairs? Who knows...) We were all loaded onto buses, and taken back to a satellite terminal.

I really wished that I could take pictures of all this, but our camera had died about a week into the trip. (We put our camera card into Christa’s camera, and she had been doing the photography for us.)

To Air China’s credit, they immediately started handing out free water and sodas when we got into the terminal, and after a while brought us all dinner. Dinner was rice and corn and fish and chicken, the chicken and fish having been cut up by the random cleaver-hack method. (Whack whack whack.) Unfortunately, the dinners also came with chopsticks, and neither Bill nor I are champion chopstick users. Our knife, fork and spoon sets were locked in the checked suitcases. Oh well. What do you do at a time like this? The best you can :-) We were very very glad to have the granola bars.

Everyone perched on the edges of the seats, scarfing down their dinners, would have made another great picture, but alas, it was not possible.

We sat around in the terminal for quite a while, and finally noticed an estimated departure time of 20:00 (8:00 pm) on the flight status board.

Periodically a really echo-y announcement was made over the PA, impossible to understand. After one such announcement, everyone got up, and started milling around. Pretty soon, we realized that everyone was marching up two flights of stairs, and crossing over a catwalk to the main terminal.

So I went over to the counter, and asked about the wheelchair. Wheelchair? The lady at the counter (with a name plate on her chest that said “Manager”) looked at me blankly. I pulled out the note showed it to her. “Wheelchair?” she said again. Bill was pissed by this point and barked at them, “YES! WHEELCHAIR!” The lady blinked at us and said, “You want a wheelchair for someone?” (Oh hello, honey, weren’t you here when I came into the terminal in a wheelchair? I believe you were right by the door. Yooo-hoooo. Anyone home?) “YES! I WANT ONE FOR ME.” After staring at me a bit more, she finally she got on the phone and called someone. We waited around for several minutes, and finally a nice young man with a wheelchair showed up, took us up the elevator, and through the airport. It was a loong way.

The attitude about the wheelchair really baffles me. It’s as if Air China thinks that anyone who doesn’t have the athleticism of a mountain goat should just stay home. They are particularly confused by someone who is not 98 years old wanting a wheelchair. Well, I am sorry that the discs in my spine are disintegrating. I am also sorry that my knees don’t have any cartilage left. You have no idea how sorry I am. I am mostly sorry because it freaking hurts. Does that make me subhuman? Apparently so. (Can you tell that this really ticks me off?) GRRRRRRRRRRRR.

Finally, after some more waiting around, the plane took off at 10:00 pm.

It’s almost 6,000 miles from Beijing to San Francisco, an eleven hour flight. We got to watch a really dumb Hugh Grant movie, a really corny kung-fu style movie, and we all tried to sleep a bit.

Because of the International Date Line, when we got to San Francisco it was still Monday. We were home. And I didn’t have to ask for a wheelchair.

Day 13 Con’t

Here are some more photos from our adventures in the Muslim Quarter. We couldn’t upload them the other night because the Internet connection was toooooooo slooooooooowwwwww.

Check out the blooming jasmine tea.



The Muslim quarter is just a delight. There are all kinds of things to see.



This guy was selling crickets in small cages:



He feeds the crickets lettuce leaves and small pieces of meat. Biggest darn crickets I’ve ever seen....



Tonight we went out to dinner with Chris and Jon. Christa provided food photography for us.
Eggplant, potato, mushroom, pepper:



Tofu skins and greens:


Meaty stuff (the kind that looks like bacon), with veggies:


Wasabi noodles (HOT):


Green beans with red peppers (SPICEY):


Fried mushrooms (YUM) (these disappered fast):

Day 12, con’t

This was an interesting day....

In the morning we went out to the street, and hailed a taxi. Christa had remarked previously that she has never had trouble with taxi drivers understanding her until we arrived. With us in tow, it seemed like the taxi drivers were having fun pretending not to understand the tourists. However, this taxi driver seemed to truly be unfamiliar with the place we wanted to go, even though Christa had an admission ticket from the temple to show him.

He started driving along, then stopped in the street, and waved his arm at another taxi. That guy drove over, and they sat there blocking traffic while they had a discussion regarding how to get to the temple. The second guy knew how to get there, so finally it was decided that the second cabbie would drive us there, and we were to switch cabs.

The cab was sitting about four feet out from the curb. Christa was sitting in the front passenger seat. Just as she swung the door open to hop out, a motorbike zipped in between the cab and the curb. BAM! The door hit the motorbike, sending it and the two occupants tumbling into the street. There was a young woman riding on the back, with a bag of groceries. She landed away from the bike, and the groceries scattered everywhere. The bike landed on the leg of the guy driving the bike.

Christa and the taxi driver got the bike driver untangled, and the bike upright. It began leaking gas and oil into the street. The young woman had a nasty bruise and a cut on her leg. The bike driver couldn’t put any weight on his leg, and sat down on the curb. By this time the whole thing had attracted quite a crowd. A Chinese man came up to us and said in perfect English, “Ask to call the police. Do not admit to anything. Otherwise the taxi driver may try to extort you. This is my advice.” We thanked him, and he melted away into the crowd.

Someone in the crowd handed the young woman a big Band-Aid to put on her cut.

Christa sat down on the curb next to the motorbike driver, and tried to comfort him. Fortunately, he was a decent young man, and admitted that he shouldn’t have cut around the cab on the side where people get out. The taxi driver also was quite decent. The only damage to the cab was a scratch on the door, and he didn’t seem to be concerned about it at all.

Christa was quite shaken herself, and called her friend Tony. Tony is Chinese, and speaks American English so well that he could easily pass for a Chinese American. (Tony works for the World Wildlife Fund in their panda conservation efforts.) Tony, bless his heart, was in another province at a WWF conference, but interrupted what he was doing to calm Christa, and talk to the taxi driver and the injured young man.

We have no idea what Tony said to them, but suddenly it was just fine if we paid the bike driver enough to fix his bike, and for him to have his leg examined at a hospital. (That came to about 37 bucks.) The taxi driver then hailed another cab, explained where we wanted to go, and sent us on our way.

Christa’s version of this event is at http://hsu-to-xisu/livejournal.com . It was a very unsettling experience. It also was a bit odd, because we had just remarked how few accidents we had seen, even though Chinese driving patterns seem chaotic and frightening to us. No one on motorbikes wears helmets, people on bicycles (sometimes with their little kid perched on the handlebars) weave through traffic, people cross the street where-ever they feel like it, and so on. The white lines in the road sometimes seem more like “suggestions” rather than lanes. And yet somehow it all usually works.

We were glad that the rest of the ride out to the temple was quite uneventful.

The temple where we went is out in the countryside. It is surrounded by farms.


Christa calls it “the banana temple” because when she wrote the characters on the board to tell her students where she had gone one weekend, they erupted in laughter. Christa had written “banana temple,” instead of its actual name. And the nickname has stuck. The real name is 香积寺, xiāng jī sì

香 xiāng fragrant / incense / (of food) savory / appetizing / sweet / scented / popular
积 jī to amass / to accumulate / to store / old / long-standing
寺 sì Buddhist temple


This temple is yet another exquisite place. Christa was surprised, because no one else (other than the monks) has been there on her previous visits. There were a few cars parked out in front belonging to family groups visiting the temple on a nice day.






We wandered around the temple grounds. Because it is not a major tourist destination, it has a friendly tranquil feeling. There are some small temple buildings, and a very old pagoda, the top of which was broken off in an earthquake at some time in the past.





The gardens surrounding the temples are beautiful, with roses and other flowers, and lush green lawns. Bees were quite busy going from flower to flower.





The last time Christa visited there, it was snowing, so the scene was quite different from what she had seen before.




Christa was looking for the little dog that lives there. He saw us, but didn’t want to stop to chat. He obviously had an important meeting that he needed to get to.



We made the acquaintance of a pretty black and white kitty.



When we made the universal “getting the attention of a cat” noises, a young tortoiseshell kitty came running up to get some love too.



We wandered around for quite a while, just savoring the atmosphere, Finally, it was time to leave. The temple is at least a mile off the highway, and we were not looking forward to the trek out to where we could catch a cab or bus. So we were sitting there on a bench outside the temple, steeling ourselves for the journey (well, Christa wasn’t - she walks all over Xi’an) when up pulls a big green and yellow bus!

We had seen the bus earlier, and had wondered if it would come back.



Christa went over to the bus, and spoke with the young woman on board who collects the fares. It was the local village bus, and yes indeed it could take us out to the highway. YAY! So off we went on the bus, and the driver deposited us at a bus-stop on the main highway.

We waited and waited for a taxi, and none went by, so finally we boarded a jam-packed bus going in the right direction. Fortunately, it was going near the new campus of Christa’s university, so she knew where we were. When we got to a bus stop that she recognized, we got off. She then hailed a taxi to take us to the chosen spot for dinner.

The area where we were is quite new, and full of very striking modern buildings. Christa explained that old shanty towns are being razed for modern new development. Some of the Universities are building new campuses in that area. Her University hopes to completely move out of the old campus where we are staying within five years.

We were driving along passing Very Modern Building after Very Modern Building, when suddenly we came to a massive wooden structure resembling a Buddhist temple. Voila! We had arrived at our destination, a gorgeous Buddhist restaurant.

We walked through large glass doors into the foyer, where we crossed a wooden bridge over a flowing stream, fed by a nearby waterfall.




We were taken to our table, and given cup after cup of pu’er tea, a marvelous tea that tastes mildly like black pepper. The menu is made up of gorgeous color photos, so Christa pointed out what we wanted, ... chigga, ......chigga, .... chigga, ....... chigga. (“Chigga” = “this”) (Chinese purists, please ignore the spelling....) Christa was enjoying this process immensely, because the restaurant is vegetarian, and she didn’t need to be worried at all about what might be in any particular dish.

We got a dish of tofu squares in a killer sauce with rich brown mushrooms, minced cucumbers rolled up in a strong ribbon-like tofu, topped with sesame peanut sauce, little diamond shaped sandwiches with good stuff in the middle resembling ground nuts or sesame seeds, and the hit of the evening: sweet-and-sour walnuts with chunks of fresh pineapple and peppers.

The walnuts had the thin brown paper-like skin removed, were battered and deep-fried, and drenched in the most heavenly sweet-and-sour sauce ever. The Chinese restaurants back home will never be the same.












Day Thirteen

Today we went back to the Muslim quarter. After looking at many many things that we could take home, we decided that what we wanted was some woodcut prints by an old guy named Professor Ding. He is a fascinating fellow, now probably in his 80’s, who apparently survived the hard times under Chairman Mao because his works are like folk-art, and celebrate the lives of peasants and farmers. But unlike the somewhat cheesey “happy tractor-driver” type propaganda posters featuring rosy-cheeked smiling men and women, Professor Ding’s work stands on its own as real art. There is a timeless quality to them that is quite appealing. So we picked up three of his prints, and in another booth got ourselves a brightly colored embroidered wall hanging, also done by rural artists.

Because we liked the pu’er tea at the Buddhist restaurant, Christa asked us if we wanted to stop at a tea shop. We said sure, so in we went. In the tea shop is a low table where customers can sit, and sample teas. It is quite a social event, with the shop owner engaging in conversation with the customer, until the decision is made regarding which tea shall be purchased.

On the low table was a kettle simmering on a hot plate. The owner pulled tiny tea cups out of a bowl of water, smiled and said “Clean, clean.” She then set the cups in the middle of the table on what appeared to be designs carved into the wooden table top. She picked up the kettle, and poured boiling water into the cups, generously overflowing them. The spilled water disappeared through the carving into a reservoir below. After the cups were so obviously sterilized we felt quite comfortable sampling what she had.




We tasted lychee tea, oolong tea, and blooming jasmine tea. (The blooming jasmine starts out as a ball about the size of a ping-pong ball. It is placed in a glass tea pot, hot water is added, and it slowly unfolds into a large chrysanthemum-looking flower.)

We decided that we liked the lychee tea even better than the pu’er tea, so we bought a small canister to take home.

Tonight we went out to dinner with Christa’s friends Chris and John. We went to a local restaurant just around the corner from the University main gate. We had deep-fried mushrooms, stir-fried green beans with red peppers, an eggplant, potato and mushroom dish, and another dish with some meat that looked like fried bacon but wasn’t fried bacon.

Right now Christa and Bill are playing with suitcases. We bought an extra suitcase at the local open air market, and we will bring some of Christa’s stuff home with us. She will be in California for the fall semester, and will return to Xi’an in the spring.

Tomorrow morning at 8:00 am the school van will pick us up and take us to the airport, and we will be on our way back home.

Day Eleven, con't

In the afternoon we went out the street and hailed a taxi to go downtown. The rain seemed to have finally stopped.

Walking across campus, we spotted this wonderful graffitto. Graffitti is extremely rare in China.




Christa wanted to take us to what she calls Art Street, before we went to dinner. Art Street is in the cool old section of town, not too far from the Muslim quarter.



Near the entrance to Art Street there is an old pagoda, much smaller than the one we visited last week. The temple associated with the pagoda was destroyed many many years ago. This one did not appear to be open to the public, but is designated as a cultural landmark.




Christa has spent quite a bit of time on Art Street, just wandering around. It is a street of artists, and shops with beautiful jewelry, carvings, scrolls, etc. There are also little booths with more affordable items. Some of the items in the shops were gorgeous, but once again the problem arises of how in the world would you get the stuff home. And some of it is very expensive, even with the rate of exchange in our favor.

Many of the little vendors were not there, either because of the rain, or because it was dinner time, and time to pack up and go home. Dinner time is 6:00, and it is amazing how the traffic and crowds just disappear between 6:00 and 7:00.

So we wandered around for a while, admired a lot of really nice stuff (there is a lady there who does embroidery that is so fine that it looks like a painting - her shop was amazing), and caught a cab over to the Italian restaurant.

When Christa and I went to wash our hands in the fancy restroom (with the real hot water! real soap! and real paper towels!) we passed Giovanni's mother-in-law, deep in conversation with a Chinese man and woman. She was speaking Chinese with a heavy Italian accent. Of course, Italian is a language with emphasis on words and syllables that soar up and down, rolling like waves, or a roller coaster. Chinese is a language with a flatter intonation, but extremely tonal, so a change in pitch and emphasis changes the meaning. The Chinese people were concentrating so hard to understand her that their heads were literally going up and down with the sound of her words, just like their heads were being pulled by invisible strings. It would have been fascinating to just to stand there and watch, but we decided that wouldn't be too cool, so we beat it back to the table.

The sky was definitely clearing, so we had a much better view from the windows than we had last week.








We had to mull over the menu for quite some time. We started out with tomato soup, with giant croutons covered with melted cheese. It was definitely made from fresh ripe tomatoes.




Christa and Bill settled on the salmon and shrimp lasagna.



I ordered traditional lasagna, mostly out of curiosity - what does real lasagna made with a real Italian recipe by a real Italian chef taste like? Good, good, good - that's what it tastes like!

We got a bottle of the house white wine - local Chinese wine. It was not bad! It resembled a dry Chardonnay. Not an "elegant" wine, but certainly acceptable, and quite drinkable.



We splurged and got tiramisu for dessert, and we were all royally stuffed.




Day Twelve

Today we are going to go to the temple where we planned to go yesterday. The rain is gone, there are patches of blue sky here and there, and it should be a beautiful day.

Day Ten

Yesterday evening it looked the rain had stopped, so we decided to go out for a walk. We headed to The Village, which is a little coffee house across the street from the University. Yes, indeed, a coffee house. It is run by a lady from Europe (Christa is not sure where), and they have real European and American style desserts and coffee. Cool place, with 80's pop music playing in the background. So we sat down, Bill and I got peach pie, Christa got apple cake, and we just sat back and relaxed. Then we looked outside, It had started to rain again. Of course, we hadn't brought the umbrellas. We decided that we should get back to Christa's apartment, about an 8 minute walk. So we started walking, and the rain got heavier. And heavier. And heavier, and suddenly we felt like we were in the monsoon in India. It was POURING. By the time we got back to the apartment we looked like we had been thrown in a swimming pool. All we could do is laugh. Talk about looking like drowned rats! And because it was raining we couldn't hang up our clothes on the clothes line on the balcony, so the shower was full of dripping wet clothing. Next day when we put on our shoes they went squish squish squish when we walked.

Today was the adventure trip to see the terra-cotta army. (If you aren't familiar with the terra-cotta army, look 'em up before proceeding further.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army

http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/shaanxi/xian/terra_cotta_army/

One of Christa's students, Angelia, said that she would pick us up at 9:30. And wouldn't you know, it was still raining,... (Actually, we all prefer the rain to the sweltering heat, so that's OK.) We stopped and got the Chinese version of a breakfast burrito at the student cafeteria. It's made with a flat bread (sort of a cross between a flour tortilla and Indian nan), and the inside is filled with cooked shredded potato and carrot and some sort of seasoning. MMMMmmmmmmm. All it needs is some Mexican salsa, which is in short supply in this neck of the woods.

Angelia picked us up at the University main gate, and off we went. Her mother had arranged for a driver for us. We were in a newer mid-sized Chevy. Turns out that Angela's mom is a manager for General Motors. Most of Christa's students have parents who are People of Importance.

It's about an hour's drive to the terra-cota army site. Silly me, I was surprised - the place was jammed with tour buses and cars. However it's one of those kinds of places - sort of like Hearst castle in California - that is always busy because people travel long distances just to see it.

It's a long walk from the parking area to the buildings, so we also hired a guy to push me in a wheelchair. We got up to the main site, and there was an English speaking guide waiting for us, a very elegant lady.

First we went to the museum building, to see the bronze chariots and horses. When these items were found during excavations, they had been smashed flat. Over several years, they were painstakingly restored. Unlike the terra-cotta soldiers, which are life-sized, these are scaled down to about half life-size.

There is a chariot, pulled by four horses, of the the type that would be ridden by two soldiers (one driving and one shooting arrows), and another chariot (with four horses) of a type that would be used for traveling and sleeping. The horses have bridles of silver with gold decorations. At one time the chariots were painted with bright colors, now there are only a few spots of paint left. After 2,000 years! Beautiful!





The museum is in a beautiful modern building. We didn't get to go through the whole place which is a shame, but oh well...

Then on to the excavations. Usually, tours take people to the excavation in the order that they were found. Christa asked to have that changed around a bit - Pit 2, Pit 3, Pit 1.

The reason that Christa asked to do that is because of the contents of the pits.

Pit 2 was only dug down to the level of the collapsed roofs that used to cover the soldiers, except for a few spots where the soldiers and horses are exposed, and can be viewed just as they were found.







Pit 3 is the smallest pit. This pit houses a contingent of soldiers that appear to be the emperor's bodyguards. After the emperor died there was a peasant revolt, and apparently many of the statues were smashed at that time. They could not be fully reconstructed. Apparently during te peasant revolt the place was set on fire, and the roof collapsed. The buildings housing the other soldiers were also set on fire, but there is no evidence in the other pits of the level of destruction that took place in Pit 3.







Then we went to Pit 1 - this is the one that is the most famous. It is huge! The building surrounding it resembles an airplane hangar.







Some of the soldiers and horses are still being restored.



Even though one has heard about the individuality of the statues, seeing them is truly breathtaking. The bodies were made with molds, but all the faces are distinctly individual, down to showing different emotions. The guide has been down in the pits, and she said that it was a bit unnerving. She said it was like the statues were watching her.




The guide spoke excellent English - she had attended the same University where Christa is teaching now!

Christa wore her Los Bagels t-shirt. Los Bagels is a bagel place in Eureka, where they post pictures on the wall of customers in famous places around the world. To qualify to be on the wall, however, one must be wearing the Los Bagels t-shirt. So we took care of that.




We finished up by watching the movie. It is in a round room with the movie projected on the walls, just like at Disneyland. If you go to see the soldiers, be sure to see the movie. It was made back in the 80's, is showing its age, and is full of local people having the time of their lives reenacting gory battle scenes. There are enthusiastic death scenes, with faces twisting in "agony" quite dramatically right in front of the cameras. It's one of those movies that is so awful that it's wonderful. A definite must-see.

We could have spent hours and hours and hours at the warriors. Of course, we're the kind of people who love museums in general. But finally it was time to leave.

Angelia said that she was taking us to dinner. We got back to the car, and the driver took us to a very nice restaurant.



Once again, way more food that we could possibly eat was ordered (this is a cultural thing), and it was fabulous.

This dish was somewhat like beef for fajitas, only very peppery. It was even bubbling on a hot platter like fajitas.

We had fish in sweet and sour sauce. We didn't have to eat the fish head.



We call this dish "Xi'an-burgers." You can get various different fillings, these had braised pork and veggies. The "bun" is somewhat like an English muffin.



We also had two kinds of noodles, christa's favorite mushrooms with walnuts, and beef slices.










After lunch we started to drive back to Xi'an. We remarked that we though that the sink stopper in the bathroom in the apartment is cool, and we wondered if Angelia knew where we could get one. It's magnetic. Angelia said something to the driver, and he pulled a giant U-turn right there in the highway and went back about a block. Turns out we were driving right by the local plumbing shop area. Shops of the same kind are all located together in China. He went driving up to one of the shops, hopped out, went inside with Angelia, pretty soon came out with the item, we said "yep, that's it," piled out of the car and went inside too. The driver's family lives in that area, and he knew the owners of the shop, so we got a "good deal." So we now have a Chinese drain and stopper assembly in our possession, and the family who owns the shop got a good story to tell to their buddies over a beer.

It was still raining when we got back, but we decided to make another foray out to the Metro store (the place like Costco), and then Christa picked us up dinner-to-go at the faculty dining hall, which is right next to the apartments. We had sweet and sour chicken (the only Chinse dish that we have encountered that tastes the same at home) and fried rice. The fried rice is very different than at home - not at all greasy, and fluffy.


Day Eleven

Today were were going to go out to Christa's favorite temple, xiang ji sì, which is on the outskirts of town. It's so beautiful that we put Christa's photos of it on our Christmas card. It is not a tourist spot, so it is usually quiet and peaceful there. However, it is definitely the kind of place that one needs to take pictures, and we don't want to get the camera soaked. Because it was pouring rain again, well..... we took a rain check on that.

So we are just hanging out at Christa's place for now. She is sorting stuff to take back to the States.

Today is our 39th wedding anniversary. Christa is going to take us out to dinner at the fabulous Italian restaurant where we ate last week.

Day Seven

Wow - is it day seven already? How time flies.

Just a small note about Chinglish. What is Chinglish? Well, apparently lots of Chinese thoughts do not translate well directly into English, and vice versa. And sometimes the wrong letter is used inadvertently in the English translation. The results can be unintentionally hilarious. The night we went to Uighur barbecue, we spotted this one. I am pretty sure that this was supposed to say “Kiss me,” but it didn’t quite turn out that way.




Just a few shops away, we spotted the ever-popular Plavboy brand of ...something. We decided not to go look to see what it was.





We wandered around the town a bit today and then went out to dinner at the place Christa refers to as “the purple restaurant.” Why is it called “the purple restaurant?” you might ask. Well, it’s called “the purple restaurant” because..... it’s PURPLE!. The whole outside of the restaurant is covered with purple tile. We had corn with pine nuts, breaded fried shrimp with sweet and sour sauce, walnuts, cucumber and peppers with mushrooms, and a platter of roast duck with plum sauce. Christa didn’t eat the duck, but Bill and I did. Delicious.










The plum sauce was so good that we put the leftover sauce on our white rice. How gauche. ;-)

Day Eight

I think that I have gotten “off” on the day count somewhere. Oh well.... you don’t care, do you? I certainly don’t. :-)

Today was a Big Day.

In the morning we went over to the local open air market. The Uighur barbecue restaurant is in this market, up a flight of old concrete stairs, and across a series of metal catwalks.






Somehow this place makes me think of the Chinese scenes in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” but I am not sure why.




This is not a tourist market, but where the locals do their shopping. The vegetable market is fabulous. Not only does it have mountains of fresh fruit and veggies everywhere, the stuff is gorgeous.




There are also mushroom vendors and spice vendors.






The spices are in open containers, so the aroma in the air near these stalls is quite lovely. It cancels out the usual “third world open air market” smells. The vendors were getting a charge out of me inhaling the aroma and going mmmmmmmmmmm. They have red pepper, different curry powders, whole nutmegs, huge chunks of cinnamon bark, and the like.

In the market there are also small hardware stores, cosmetics stores, tailors, and so on. The tailors were all hard at work using good old fashioned treadle sewing machines.






Then Christa wanted to take us to lunch at one of her favorite “hole in the wall” restaurants. On the way she spotted one of the local characters, an ancient-looking man who apparently lives in a little cart, and makes small wood carvings for a living. He doesn’t want his picture taken, so we had to take it on the sly from some distance. You can see him in profile, with his wispy beard hanging down.





He knows Christa, because she has bought necklaces from him - small wooden pendents shaped like (to our eyes) snowmen, milk bottles, baseball bats, and yo-yos. The pendants hang from a red silk cord. We stopped and said hi, and he offered Christa a belt from his bottle of baijo, the local firewater. Like we said, a character.

Then we got to the noodle place. Christa ordered us up the meal - three bowls of noodles, and a bottle of pineapple beer for each of us. Oh....my...god. The noodles tasted like the aroma at the spice vendor’s stall. I guess the closest I can come to describing it is to compare it to the red curry in a very good Thai restaurant, but still somewhat different than that. Killer good.




We got back to campus, stopped to admire the lotus blossoms in the pond near Christa’s apartment, changed clothes and went downtown to the Muslim quarter.




In contrast to the local market, the Muslim quarter is the place to go to buy gifts - it is clearly a tourist destination, but that’s OK because it’s what you might call a “sincere” tourist destination. Fun place. When we got there, it was just starting to rain. Most of the market is under large overhanging eves, or canopies, so we just had to dodge the places where the rain was coming in.

After we wandered around for a while, it was time to hike across the main plaza to meet some of Christa’s students for dinner. Of course it started to pour. And there was a bride and groom, in all their finery, getting their outdoor wedding shots. They looked a bit soggy. We slogged along until we got to a Starbucks (yes, they ARE everywhere) with a covered patio, so we sat down for a bit because we were early. And there, on the other side of the plaza from the soggy bride and groom, we had a view of a soggy lady getting fashion/glamour shots. I think it’s hard to look gorgeous with rain pouring down on you, but she was trying.




We gave up on waiting for the rain to stop, soldiered on, and met Christa’s students at the Bell Tower.




We were looking gorgeous too, by that time.

We didn’t know it, but we were about to experience something very special.

One of Christa’s students is a tall slender girl named Cathy.



Cathy said that her mom wanted to come too, so Christa said fine. What we didn’t know is that Cathy’s mom made dinner reservations at an elegant Chinese Fine Dining Establishment. She whisked us into a taxi (told the kids that they could just walk), and took us away.

We were honored guests at a fabulous multi-course Chinese banquet. As the honored guests, we had to be the first to take some food, and then platter after platter after platter of gorgeously arranged special dishes arrived at the table. After a while there were so many dishes they started stacking them.

The students in attendance were able to come because they all live locally. There were a bunch of girls and one guy, Terrance. Cathy’s mom called upon him to make a speech and toast. He got up and said “Christa’s Mom and Dad came from United States, so let’s eat!”








As honored guests, we had to try everything. That included the fish heads. Yes, you read that right - fish heads - a Real Treat as far as the Chinese are concerned. The fiah heads were covered with strips of red pepper that looked like bell pepper, but tasted like jalapeno - which we discovered after taking a big old chomp. The kids giggled and said “oh the peppers are only for decoration.” Now you tell me.....

(food photos by Christa)




They were quite surprised when I said that in American restaurants the fish heads are removed. WHAT? they said. “But that’s the best part!” (They conferred and decided that Americans just must not know how to cook the fish heads properly.)

To eat a fish head, you are supposed to just crunch them up, bones and all. It was...hmm...interesting. We also got a bit of the rest of the fish, which was excellent. Actually, all of it really was excellent, except for the crunching up the fish bones part.






(you can tell the girls are starting to get stuffed here...)


During the meal we were peppered with questions about California. One young lady was very worried about all the rain in Humboldt County, and another thought that she could go to Los Angeles, and just get on a city bus and ride around to see the city. She had heard of a bus called the “gray dog,” and thought that sounded like just the thing to see the sights. We tried to explain that in LA the preferred mode of transportation is automobile. She just looked at us like she was thinking “Sounds like bullshit to me....”

And the food just kept coming and coming and coming. For dessert, there was sweet red bean paste in an impossible-looking fluffy meringue shells, small pastries and fresh ripe melon with cherry tomatoes.








Cathy then made a small speech, explaining that this dinner was a gift from her father, who could not attend. Christa was deeply touched. We were deeply touched. Cathy’s mom gave Christa a big hug. Hankie time.

When the dinner was over, some of the students had small presents for us. We got decorative knotted silk cord decorations, and some bags of soybean powder, which we were assured makes a delicious quick dinner when you’re too tired to cook a big meal.

What a night to remember!


Day Nine

Because of all the walking around yesterday, today my knees are made of jelly. Christa and Bill ran some errands, and I wrote this marvelous narrative. It started raining again, so our clothes hanging on the line are getting wet. Christa is making some soup. We are having soup and baotzi for lunch. Life is good.

Day One, Part 2

After Christa picked us up at the airport, we drove back to the campus apartment where she lives. We are staying in an apartment one flight up from her. We got our stuff put away, and went back down to her apartment, and just spent some good time catching up on things. Her friend Adam came over with lunch - Chinese takeout. :-) It was Adam’s last night in Xi’an, and he wanted to go out to his all-time favorite dinner - hot pot. We said fine, whatever. So when dinner time rolled around we walked down to the main thoroughfare, and caught a cab to “Little Sheep” Mongolian hot pot restaurant.

Hot pot is literally just that - you sit down at the table, they bring a cauldron of soup and vegetables and nest it into a opening in the middle of the table, and turn on a gas burner below. You can order a variety of things to cook - noodles, mushrooms, veggies, various kinds of tofu, and mutton - hence the name “Little Sheep.” We got the non-mutton vegetarian version. Christa and Adam ordered the pot half regular and half spicy - the cauldron has a divider in the middle. The spicy side was REALLY spicy. The whole surface of the liquid was covered with those little fiery hot Asian chilies. Not for the faint of heart. Bill and I brought our own knife and fork sets, and I half expected the fork to melt from the heat of the spices when I dipped in in that side to test the waters, as it were. A tiny taste sufficed - and Bill and I like to think we like spicy food. Ha! We’re rank amateurs. So the whole pot comes to a rolling boil, you dunk in your tidbits and cook ‘em, and boy is it good!



By then end of dinner, jet lag started to set in, and we were carted home and sent to bed.

Day Two

On day two we set out on a jaunt to the Big Goose Pagoda, which was brand spanking new in AD 648.

Before we went, however, we stopped for a great big lunch of one of the local specials - Chinese dumplings. You can get them in broth, like won ton soup, or get them just on a plate. To drink we had pineapple beer, which really isn’t bad, with only a .5 % alcohol content, and much safer to drink than many other things.



(We brought our own forks.)

There are lots and lots of different yummy things inside. Yummy! Did I mention that they are yummy? They are yummy!
Then, off to pagoda. We paid a small entrance fee to get in.



There are vast temple grounds and gorgeous gardens all around the site.



We had just gotten inside the grounds when a Chinese man came up, excitedly waving his camera. We thought that he wanted us to take his picture. But no, that wasn’t it. He wanted us to take a picture of him hanging out with his good buddy Bill. So Bill had his picture taken with some random Chinese guy who was just ecstatic that Bill went along with the gag.



China is allowing religious establishments to function once again, and there were groups of monks here and there. We came across one little monk scurrying along striking a piece of wood, as if it was a bell.



We saw a group of monks hauling wooden posts and timbers to be used in the reconstruction effort.



After going through the grounds, you finally get to the pagoda. It is massive!



There is a small entrance fee to the grounds, and an extra fee to go into the pagoda. Of course we went in. There are steep steps all the way to the top. Bill and Christa took off up the stairs.



I knew my knees couldn’t take something like that, so I just parked myself on the bottom step and waited for them. And of course all the Chinese had a good time staring at the silly white woman sitting on the step. Like what’s the matter with you, lady? Don‘t you know you’re sitting on the step, for pete’s sake? I just smiled sweetly at them, as there was no place else to sit. Christa and Bill got some awesome shots of the city. You can see how bad the smog is, and this was on a very breezy day with a rain storm blowing in.







Just when we were leaving, it started to rain. It had been horribly hot the day before, but the storm cooled things down nicely. We caught a cab back to Christa’s place, and had leftover Chinese takeout for dinner.

Day Three

My knees were feeling awfully tender after all the hiking around the temple grounds, Christa had some items to pick up at the tailor, so she and Bill went off to take care of that, and I stayed at the apartment.

Riding in a cab anywhere is an adventure, since the traffic patterns appear to be completely chaotic to us. They got to the tailor only to discover that Christa’s dress was not done, so another trip will be necessary. After they got back, we all went out to dinner with Almut, who teaches German at the University, and Christa’s friends Chris and John. (They are a married couple who met in Xi’an. She’s originally from Australia, he’s from South Carolina.) When Christa first met Almut, Christa mentioned that she had been to Germany twice. Small world - Almut knows someone that Christa knows in Illmenau, Germany.

For dinner, we went to dinner at Dudus (not an especially promising name for a restaurant) and had a grand spread. One of the things that we have discovered is that real Chinese food is quite spicy. Quiite Spicy, in fact. I was all excited because kung pao chicken was on the menu. Guess what folks, unless you’ve been to China, you’ve never had kung pao. Really. It was good, and it was HOT, and it sure didn’t taste like the kung pao at home. This is truly the land of great food.



In China, it’s cheaper to eat out than to cook for yourself, so we are going to have a lot of terrific meals.

Day Four

The grand adventure for the day - off to the old Muslim quarter. We took another Disneyland thrill ride (aka, taxi) and went to the center of Old City Xi’an. The huge old city walls are still intact, and quite a sight. There are big towers, the drum tower and the bell tower (14th century), that were used for communication in the old days. This area was the end of the Silk Road in ancient times. Traders from the middle east came and set up shop, and their descendants still live there. In the center of the Muslim quarter is the Grand Mosque, a gorgeous old (742 AD) structure resembling a Buddhist temple. It is still an active Mosque to this day.




We arrived just in time the call to prayer. Instead of a guy in a minaret, there was a guy with a bullhorn, and the faithful (all males as far as we could see) appeared and went into the Mosque.





Sitting in the garden outside the Mosque, we could hear the prayers. It was quite enchanting, sort of like being in an ancient fairy tale.





Just like in the days of the Silk Road, there are little shops all around the Mosque where one can buy genuine fake antiques, Gucci (?) handbags, and all kinds of gifts, from the tacky to the sublime.



It is the kind of place where one haggles over the price, and you may or may not get a good deal. We wandered around until the heat and humidity and smog got to us, we found a nice air conditioned cab back to the apartment, and Christa stopped and bought us fresh fruit smoothies.

One thing about Xi’an is that it is a big city with lots of traffic and lots of smog. The smog is so thick some days that buildings quite close are obscured. However, apparently there are attempts to make it better, because all the taxis run on natural gas, and you simply do not see old cars. The heart of the problem is the coal-fired industrial sites, and until controls are placed on them, well... it just will be really smoggy.

After we had rested up a bit, we went off to dinner. If it seems like everything revolves around the meals, that’s because it does. The dinner of choice tonight? Uighur (pronounced “Wigga.”) What is Uighur, you might ask. The Uighur are a Chinese minority group, Muslim, from Mongolia, and boy do they know how to cook! We had a pasta dish with a tomato sauce (are we in Italy?) lamb grilled on skewers, and perfectly cooked veggies. The Chinese really know how to do those veggies just right! I think we have come to food heaven.



Day Five

One of the first places Christa visited when she got here was The Temple of the Eight Immortals. Once upon a time it was waaaay out in the countryside, but now it’s smack in the middle of the city. It is a Taoist temple, built in the Song Dynasty (960-1279), and was repaired and expanded many times in succeeding dynasties. The structures that can be seen today were mainly built in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). This is one of the must-see places in Xi’an. So after a great big bowl of oatmeal with raisins, we were off to see it. The taxi dropped us off at a set of enormous intricately carved gates, leading to a narrow street lined with street vendors.







Sunday is “antique market day,” so that’s what we saw. There were lots of very old-looking jade pieces, metal bowls, carved objects, and the like, Of course one always wonders about the authenticity of such things, And then there is always the problem of “wow that’s neat, I wonder how the heck I could ever get it home.” Gorgeous stuff everywhere. We crossed a narrow street at the back of the market, and then we were at the temple. What is amazing about these places is that despite being surrounded by the city, there is such a sense of calm quietness inside the walls.



What we have seen at the Buddhist sites was true here too - there are a series of courtyards and small buildings connected by paths. Each of the buildings has its own significance.




There were people offering incense and prayers at the various sites. We just wandered around and took photos of the wishing well and the exterior of the buildings.




Unfortunately, photos are forbidden inside the buildings. Inside each building is large shrine, with a statue of an Immortal. On the walls are breathtaking murals, depicting the stories of the Immortals. It really made us wish that we understood more of what we were seeing. It was gorgeous.

After we came home from the temple, we had tuna sandwiches. Christa was quite excited to find Hellman’s mayonnaise in the local import store. And - hang on tight - on the menu for tonight - Italian food!

Once again we jumped into a taxi and went across town, a ride that is never boring. We met Christa’s friends Chris and John at the restaurant. We were definitely in the new, very modern and upscale area of the city.



Check out the waterfall between the escalators. We also knew we were upscale because there was a Haagen Dazs store just a bit over from the escalators. Didn’t go in, we were on a mission for even better things.

The restaurant is called Il Satiro Danzante (The Dancing Satyr), and is owned by Giovanni, who teaches Italian at the University.




His place is billed at “the first Italian restaurant in Xi’an.” We met him, and his Very Italian mother-in-law, when we came in. What a place! Wow! Beautiful white linens on the tables, warm beige suede chairs, stemware on the table. This is a Very Nice Restaurant. They even serve water with dinner! Most exciting to the folks who have lived in Xi’an for a while is the Western restroom, with fancy fixtures and - best of all - hot water, soap and paper towels!

The dining room has huge glass walls with an expansive view of the old city, with the huge wall and watch towers.




The menu lists a dazzling array of food, from true Italian-style pizza (they have a wood-fired brick pizza oven) to lasagna, and all kinds of specialty dishes. We had grilled salmon drizzled with basil pesto, fresh salad, and perfectly cooked grilled veggies.



We also had the house wine, a local white wine that was quite respectable. Christa had tiramisu for dessert, Bill and I had “chocolate cake,” which really was more like a layer of chocolate truffle on shortbread. Heavenly! Be sure to look it up next time you’re in Xi’an.



We had a great evening!

Day Six

Today we spent a lot of time doing ordinary errands. Christa had to go back to the tailor to get the dress that was not finished the other day, we went to Metro, which is sort of like Costco, got fruit smoothies, and just relaxed. Today was also the day I realized that there was a dog noseprint on the lens of the camera, hence the funny blurry spot in all of the photos taken so far. The lens was cleaned, all future photos will be much better.

Day 1, Part 1: Sunday, July 8 - our adventure begins.

We plopped ourselves in the car, and drove to the fabulous Best Western El Rancho Inn in Millbrae, close to the San Francisco airport. They have a “park and ride” program. If you spend the night you can park your car there for two weeks, they will haul you and your bags to the airport the next day, and pick you up again when you get back. What a deal.

We arranged to have the van pick us up at noon, the flight was supposed to leave at 2:50. Sur-prise sur-prise - we found out that it wouldn't leave until after 6:00. The incoming flight was seriously delayed. OK.... Problem #2 - we wouldn’t arrive in Beijing until after the last flight to Xi’an. OK..... How the heck is Christa gonna know that we aren’t going to show up when she expects us to? The nice man at the ticket counter (and he really was nice, unlike other Air China employees that we have encountered...) connected us with reservations, and we arranged for the first flight out of Beijing to X’ian the morning after our original arrival time. Then we said “how do we get this info to our daughter?” The nice man said “Do you want to call her?” It was only 3:34 in the morning in Xi’an (actually in all of China because they only have one time zone), but we said “Sure!” We gave him Christa’s cellphone number, and he dialed her up. Fortunately we got good clear connection, woke Christa up, gave her the new arrival time, let her go back to sleep, and settled down to wait. And wait. And wait.

Fortunate circumstance #1 - we requested a wheel chair for me, because sometimes I have real trouble walking long distances. (My back and knees think that I am 95 years old.) Since we were leaving from the very last gate in the airport (I swear), I was very happy to have someone haul me there. The really fortunate part of this arrangement was yet to come, however.

We waited and waited and waited, got a tostada salad with our freebie meal voucher, and waited some more. The late-arriving plane showed up at 5:00, unloaded, got cleaned up, refueled and restocked, we boarded at 6:15 and were outta there by 6:45.

We then flew for 11 hours, and got to Beijing after 9:00 at night. It’s a good thing that we had the wheelchair reserved, because then they had to deal with us. A bunch of people on the plane had missed a connecting flight to Shanghai. There was a person at the gate with a sign waiting for them. No one was waiting for us. If we hadn’t had the wheelchair guy we would have been just two little people lost in the crowd. We got our bag, went through customs, and then the wheelchair guy had to get on his walkie-talkie and figure out what to do with us. Finally they put us on an airport shuttle bus with the Shanghai people, and took us to a hotel.

There were two young ladies working the front desk, and they looked rather astonished to have this swarm of people suddenly descend upon them at almost 11:00 pm. They didn’t speak English. We needed to communicate that we had to have a wakeup call, and get back to the airport in the morning to catch a 7:30 flight. We got blank looks, and we were more than a little worried. Then a hero appeared. There was a Chinese-American family in the Shanghai group. Dad came to our rescue, set us up with a wakeup call at 4:00 am, and told us that we needed to be in the lobby to eat breakfast before catching the shuttle at 5:00 am. WHEW!

A porter appeared to take our bags to our room. There was a sitting room and a bedroom. He wanted us to go back downstairs for a free dinner, but we said no.... He turned on the lights and air in the sitting room and said goodbye. We could turn on the lights in the bathroom (Western style - yay!), but couldn’t figure out how to turn on the lights in the bedroom. Sounds, dumb, but true. Therefore we didn’t even know that there was an air conditioning unit in the bedroom. It was hot in there, but we could open the window, and there was a good screen, so we slept with no sheets, and an open window. Surprisingly, that part of Beijing was extremely quiet. We were so tired at that point it probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway if someone had been running a jackhammer outside the window.

Got the wakeup call, trundled down to the lobby to discover that breakfast consisted of a buffet of pickled stuff, hard-boiled eggs, corn on the cob, and unidentifiable stringy stuff in a bowl. We had been hoping to at least find a banana, but no such luck. Oh well...

Several buses were out at the curb, the same porter who took us to our room the night before got us to the correct bus.

After a bit of a delay (someone appeared to be missing), we were off to the airport.

Alas, there was no nice wheelchair guy to help us out. We went into the lobby, and saw the Shanghai group at an Air China counter. We saw the nice family from the night before. They were NOT happy campers. Air China could not tell them a flight or time for their connection to Shanghai. We were sooooo glad that we had taken care of that at SFO! Nice Dad pointed us in the direction of the domestic flights area and off we went.

We got into the domestic flights area and discovered about a bazillion Air China check-in counters, with a huge line at each one, and no signs in English. Great.... now what. We are not 30 years old and braver than hell, like Christa. No, we are old folks with tickets bearing yesterday’s date. Oh dear.

To make a long story short, it ended up that we crossed someone’s palm with silver (he griped that we didn’t give him enough even though Bill gave him the rough equivalent of 16 bucks in Chinese currency, a LOT of money on local standards) and got to the right gate at the right time, and were finally on the last leg of the journey to Xi’an. Thank heavens (!) they had a really decent Western style breakfast on the plane, along with orange juice and really luscious jasmine tea... mmmmmmmmm.......

The flight got into Xi’an at 9:35 in the morning. We were wondering if we would ever see our checked luggage again, since it had been whisked away at the Air China check-in counter prior to the conversation about why we had yesterday’s ticket, and that they needed to look us up in the computer to see that we had a new reservation.

But here it came, bumpity bumpity, on the conveyer belt. Another big WHEW!

We grabbed the bag, found Christa, had a giant tearful hug session, and headed out to the parking lot. Christa hired the University van so we didn’t have to deal with a bus or taxi. It was a gorgeous day, and we were VERY glad to have arrived.