Friday, May 13, 2011

More Xi'an

Got up, headed to the park area near the towers again, still no old people walking backwards. Lisa said I have to get up pretty early to see that.


Back to the hostel and had breakfast, then headed to Starbucks between the Drum and Bell Towers to wait for Ellen. She showed up, we each got something to drink and hung out for a bit, then we walked to the South Gate of the old city wall, paid the entrance fee and went up. It's pretty cool, the vast wall is maybe 50 feet high and it stretches for many kilometres around what was the old city (which is now mostly demolished, replaced by lots of skyscrapers and malls). We rented bikes and biked all around, stopping for pictures quite often. It maybe took us 2+ hours.


We went for lunch at a hostel near the south gate, then jumped on a local bus and headed to the Big Goose Pagoda. There's a huge park and public area with huge fountain pools leading up to the pagoda (and of course, lots of people selling trinkets). Apparently at night, they put on an awesome fountain light show.


After that, it was getting late in the afternoon and I had a train to catch ay 7:50pm, so I headed back to my hostel, had supper, then got a taxi to the train station.


A local started chatting with me (english practice time again). He was on the same night train, but he had a seat (not a sleeper bed). Most Chinese can only afford seats, not the sleeper beds. He was also getting off at Suzhou, one stop before Shanghai and where Lisa is teaching.


The train was a bit late boarding. In my birth, the two bottom beds were not taken, so a group of four locals moved in with 18 beer (the big bottles) and lots of snacks. Of course, they had to offer beer to the foreigner, which was nice, so had a couple of beers with them, but I declined the chicken feet when they offered. They didn't speak any English, but my "friend" came over from his seat and ended up acting as translator.


Other than the hospitality of the locals on the train, nothing else exciting happened, and I climbed into my top bunk about 9:45, 15 minutes before lights out.


Remember the tv's on the train playing some good, old "Just for Laughs Gags".

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