Xi'an Wandering: Saturday (backposted)
Despite my exhaustion, I was wide awake at 6:30am. Stupid time zones! I was supposed to meet another grad student and my advisor at the hotel lobby at 8am, but I arranged with the grad student to meet at 8:30. But we forgot to tell our advisor... he was a little annoyed (but not much, since it was out of character for me to be late).
We went wandering around Xi'an! First we went to the Shaanxi History Museum. It was pretty crowded, since you can get in for free if you wait a long time. We paid, though. Unfortunately it was hard to get as clear an idea of the exhibits as I might have liked, since it was so full of people. But what I could see was very cool.
Also at the museum, I experienced the phenomena of squat toilets and bring-your-own-toilet-paper. I was prepared for this, and despite what some random people on the internet seem to think, squat toilets are not actually that intimidating -- although I can see how they might be if you don't know to expect them.
After the museum, we went to look for lunch. We walked over to the older part of the city, within the city walls. I wanted to try biang biang noodles, because I had read about them on linguistic blogs. But unfortunately none of the places we passed that sold them looked very good. So we ended up at a dumpling place, but had some trouble ordering due to the language barrier. (I did know jiaozi, and the names of different kinds of meat, so there was that...).
After that we visited the Bell Tower, built in 1384. It had a nice view across the older part of the city, from all four directions. There was also an impressive bell.
From there, we walked to the city wall, climbed up on top, and rented bikes. It's almost 9 miles around. We thought we would be able to bike around twice in two hours, but we had underestimated the bumpiness of the wall. Also, I had some difficulty with my bike because I was too short -- I could barely get a toe on the ground from over the crossbar, let alone the seat. So it took me a minute every time we stopped or started -- although I got a little better by the end. I ended up with a bruise collection, though, and some sore muscles a couple days after. But it was extremely fun.
We then walked back towards the hotel. My advisor treated us to some red bean ice cream bars from a convenience store, and we walked as it slowly grew darker. By this time my feet were pretty sore, and we were started to get pretty exhausted, so we went ahead and got dinner. The other grad student had found a vegetarian restaurant, so we went there. The waitress seemed very confused when we tried to make an order, but because of the language barrier she couldn't convey to us what the problem was. She got someone else and they both just started laughing. Even with a translation app on our phones, we couldn't figure it out. So eventually we just ended up with too much food, but it was very very good food.
After this, we were all exhausted and went back to our rooms to go to bed.
We went wandering around Xi'an! First we went to the Shaanxi History Museum. It was pretty crowded, since you can get in for free if you wait a long time. We paid, though. Unfortunately it was hard to get as clear an idea of the exhibits as I might have liked, since it was so full of people. But what I could see was very cool.
Also at the museum, I experienced the phenomena of squat toilets and bring-your-own-toilet-paper. I was prepared for this, and despite what some random people on the internet seem to think, squat toilets are not actually that intimidating -- although I can see how they might be if you don't know to expect them.
After the museum, we went to look for lunch. We walked over to the older part of the city, within the city walls. I wanted to try biang biang noodles, because I had read about them on linguistic blogs. But unfortunately none of the places we passed that sold them looked very good. So we ended up at a dumpling place, but had some trouble ordering due to the language barrier. (I did know jiaozi, and the names of different kinds of meat, so there was that...).
After that we visited the Bell Tower, built in 1384. It had a nice view across the older part of the city, from all four directions. There was also an impressive bell.
From there, we walked to the city wall, climbed up on top, and rented bikes. It's almost 9 miles around. We thought we would be able to bike around twice in two hours, but we had underestimated the bumpiness of the wall. Also, I had some difficulty with my bike because I was too short -- I could barely get a toe on the ground from over the crossbar, let alone the seat. So it took me a minute every time we stopped or started -- although I got a little better by the end. I ended up with a bruise collection, though, and some sore muscles a couple days after. But it was extremely fun.
We then walked back towards the hotel. My advisor treated us to some red bean ice cream bars from a convenience store, and we walked as it slowly grew darker. By this time my feet were pretty sore, and we were started to get pretty exhausted, so we went ahead and got dinner. The other grad student had found a vegetarian restaurant, so we went there. The waitress seemed very confused when we tried to make an order, but because of the language barrier she couldn't convey to us what the problem was. She got someone else and they both just started laughing. Even with a translation app on our phones, we couldn't figure it out. So eventually we just ended up with too much food, but it was very very good food.
After this, we were all exhausted and went back to our rooms to go to bed.