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Tuesday, November 9, 2010

In Which Ann and Mike Try to Conquer Xi'an and Decide to Survey the City from its Walls Instead.

After cold Lanzhou Ann was very pleased to arrive in a decidedly warmer Xi'an.  Mike thinks the Lanzhou weather was perfect.  Transportation was much easier (although because of traffic, also slower) and the airport shuttle bus served us well.  There was some relatively minor hotel debacle for our first night, but we rose the following morning (relatively) early and with a keen sense of adventure.  We decided to storm the city.

Our hotel liaison cornered us before we could even get out the door.  She not only tried to sell us several expensive tour packages, but was obscenely chipper, and told several bad jokes in English (making fun of how they say "car" is Boston just isn't the same if you already speak heavily accented English).  Despite these serious marks against her, we took her advice and began our attack by heading out to Xi'an's restored wall to survey the city.

The wall is huge.

Really, very large.  We decided to rent bikes and ride around the entire city on top of the wall.  I (Ann) refused to ride a tandem bicycle, so we waited for some single bikes to return from their circuit before setting off on our own.


I think that Mike really enjoyed his bike despite the fact that it was tiny and it was impossible to adjust the seat.


I have to admit that I also loved mine.  It was so nice to travel so quickly!


I refused to leave my bike.  Even for pictures.


Fine.


Mike found the panorama button on the camera.


From one corner of the wall, facing away from the center of town, onto a moat and a great park!

Chickens!
After our wall adventure (which took an hour and 1/2!  Surprising!) we headed towards Xi'an's Muslim neighborhood.  And delicious food!  Xi'an has a specialty dish that starts with you, the soup eater (drinker?) tearing up a few tough old pieces of bread into a pile of rough bread crumbs.  Then some magic is done, and you get back a soup with beef broth, hunks of meat, vegetables, and all of those bread bits in it!  It was a great meal, but Ann was only moderately impressed.  Her heart (stomach) had been left in Urumqi (and the next night we scoured the Muslim quarter until we found somewhere with pilaf for her).  But after our great soups we walked through a night market that was just ramping up, bought a few little things, and headed back to our hotel.  Overall, a great day.

Next adventure: terracotta warriors.

Ann and Mike

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