Day 96 - 100 -- April 11th to 15th

These past few days have been quite eventful. On Friday evening Tom, Grace, Mike, Gen and I boarded a train for Xi'an. Xi'an is the capital of Shaanxi Province and is considered one of the most important historical cities in China. The train ride to Xi'an was quite an experience. The Beijing railway station is the largest in Asia - it almost looked and felt like an airport. We traveled on the train and slept on hard-top bunk beds. Our bunks were on the very bottom. During the twelve hour journey we played cards, talked and of course slept. We arrived in Xi'an at around 6:30am where we were greeted by our tour guide. We really hadn't planned on going to Xi'an let alone going with a tour. But Tom and Grace were able to find a local tour which was considerably cheaper.

On Saturday we traveled to see places like where the Xi'an Incident occurred, Terracotta Warriors and Huaqing Hot Springs. The Terracotta Warriors were truly amazing. With that being said, a Chinese tour experience is quite eventful - no English, poorly organized, hidden costs and of course each day is jammed packed! By the end of the first day I was pretty tired. In the evening we played some cards and relaxed at the hotel.

I definitely enjoyed Sunday the most. We traveled to Mt. Huashan and witnessed breathtaking scenery. It took us two hours to get to Mt. Huashan. Shortly after the bus stopped a mini bus came to drive us up to the gondola. The bus ride was awesome! As we winded around the mountain rocks we saw beautiful waterfalls and rapids, cliffs and caves. From the bus ride we scooted up the mountain on a gondola. We had all hoped that we would have had time to hike up the mountain but there was not nearly enough time. Nevertheless, we did manage to hike a fair bit. We began at the Jade Spring Temple and journeyed up to the East Peak (Facing Sun Peak) We climbed stairs and steps for about four hours or so. At the summit we were above the cloud line. Time prevented me from making it to the top of the Eastern peak which has an altitude of about 6,800ft. The others were especially tired but I was so close. I was maybe 200ft from the summit of the mountain. While we found the hike tiring, we often passed Chinese workers who were lugging water, food and goods up to the many tourists stops. These men (often older) carry goods up the mountain every day - and they don't take the gondola. I was equally impressed with Tom, Grace and Gen's perseverance. Mike find the climbing especially difficult as he was fighting a cold. We got back to our tour bus at 5:30 in the evening. Unfortunately, we were delayed an hour and a half by an overly excited shopping couple. By the time we got by a car accident and all the traffic we found a place to eat - it was about 9:30pm. The bus dropped us off near the Bell tower. Xi'an is quite fascinating at night. We walked through the markets and passed the Muslim temples before grabbing some Muslim dish for dinner.

Yesterday was somewhat frustrating. The tour bus arrived two hours after the expected pick up time. Honestly, they are so unorganized but as we keep reminding ourselves - we are in China! We ended up leaving the tour early since the tour guide was going to take us around to some of the tourist shops. Instead we rented bicycles and biked around Xi'an city wall. This city wall represents one of the oldest and best preserved city walls in China. Biking around the city was another one of the highlights of my trip. After biking, we headed back to the tour guide office. We had been hounding them all day to get our train tickets. They finally did get them for us but not the tickets we had ordered. There was little we could do to change our train seats but we did manage to get reimbursed for the change in seats. While we waited for the train, the five of us sat in McDonalds playing cards and laughing our heads off.

The train ride home was better than I had expected. The five us played games and chatted during the evening. Some people nearby on the train asked us to quiet down - but we were suffering from contagious laughter and probably tiredness. I also talked to a man who lives close to Xian for a good hour. He spoke a little English so we were able to talk a fair bit. We went to bed around 10 o-clock in the evening. Mike, Gen and I slept on the very top bunk. It was a unique experience.

We arrived at the Beijing railway station around 7:15am. Tom and Grace took an overly crowded bus home and the three of us took the luggage and headed back home via. bus, subway and taxi. When I got home I desperately wanted to have a shower. We were all tired. I spent the rest of the day working on Mandarin, doing laundry, uploading pictures, emails and just relaxing.

Another adventure in Him