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Well, we’ve returned from our epic Xi’an/Chengdu adventure. We had to cut off the last part of the trip to Chongqing and down the Yangtze because it’s the high season for travel and we couldn’t get tickets out of Xi’an to Chengdu until the 20^th when we were supposed to leave the 18^th to stick to my carefully planned itinerary but c’est la vie, itineraries and the Chinese train system don’t work well together. It worked out for the best, we got to meet some really cool people and had an extra day to go to the mountains, but more on that later.

Our trip entries will be in installments since doing it all at once would just be far too long! So we’ll be moving chronologically through the trip starting in Xi’an, so we’ll see how far I get with this blog before I just get tired of typing.

We left on the 15^th on an overnight train from Shanghai to Xi’an. I’m finding I like those best for long distance trips since you can get on the train, fall asleep, and wake up at your destination. It makes things seem much shorter. We took hard sleepers, which are much more comfortable than the name implies. There are 6 bunks in each little alcove and while they’re not terribly private, people mostly leave you alone anyway. However, since we were traveling the day after the New Year’s celebrations there was practically no one else on the train and we had an entire set of 6 bunks to ourselves, it was lovely and quiet.

We arrived in Xi’an around 9am on the 16^th to weather that was surprisingly warmer than we thought it would be. It was supposed to snow the whole time we were there and it was sunny and warm(ish) every single day. We then found some quick street food and some McDonald’s coffee (which I have had far too much of here) and checked into the hostel.

<rant> Quick thing about the McDonalds coffee though, every SINGLE time I’ve had it I’ve had to specify that no, I do NOT want a giant ladle-full of the awful awful sugar syrup they glorp into every cup. For WHATEVER reason Chinese people decided that everyone must want gross syrup in their coffee because coffee is bitter and everything must be sweet. It’s like I’m living in Elf and Buddy wants to slap some syrup on my spaghetti. Ugh.  </rant>

Anyway,

Having never stayed in a hostel before, and seeing the street it was located on I was apprehensive about it before going in, but I was happily mistaken. The hostel we stayed at is ranked #9 in the entire world and it’s easy to see why. It had a full (western-style) restaurant and bar and the room was cleaner and more comfortable than the hotel we stayed at in Huangzhou and about the same size as the hotel room we had in Beijing, it had a private bath and was only about $20 a night.  Everything there is brand new. The only odd thing was that the shower was slap in the middle of the bathroom, and by that I mean there was a showerhead with a drain just opposite the sink so you flooded the bathroom when you took a shower and somehow that just felt wrong… especially in a newly tiled bathroom without the little squeegee thing with which to dry out the shower (thanks, mom).

Staying in a youth hostel was the best decision we could have made in lodging. I had us booked in a fancy pants hotel but did a little more digging and found this place right in the middle of the city and that really paid off. It was within walking distance of just about everything and since the weather was so nice it worked out quite well.

The first night we were there we went out to the city wall in Xi’an, which is well preserved from 1370 (the original wall is much older), and took a tandem bike ride around the entire perimeter. We managed the whole wall in an hour since the bike rental place was closing and well, we had to. It was a quick ride but a lovely one nonetheless. We then headed out to the Muslim district (listed as the ‘Muslin quarter’ on our map… apparently it’s just a small square of fabric) to check out the area and get some dinner. We got some incredible pictures of people cooking on the street with fire shooting right out of their stalls on to the street. I can’t even imagine how many safety violations that would incur in the States. We also watched an old man blowing caramel into the shape of animals as if he was blowing glass and saw multiple stands hawking everything from t-shirts and scarves to flutes and cigarette lighters. For the most part on those streets there are 5 or 6 specialty dishes that everyone makes so it rather limits your choices for dining, but the food is quite good since these people have been making it their entire lives.

We returned to the hotel late in the evening, booked a tour for the Terracotta Warriors for the next morning, indulged a bit in the cheap offerings at the bar (and the free beer) and watched a bootleg copy of 2012. Oh China, how I love your lack of regard for intellectual property laws.

Up next: Terracotta Warriors and Hua Shan (Flower Mountain)

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