Wow, I’m actually getting caught up. At the moment, I’m on the overnight train from Xi’an to Shanghai and I’m up to today in my writings. Of course, I still am not sure when all of this will get posted, but I’ll see what I can do when I get to Hong Kong.
I intentionally played it slow this morning. I got up early, had some breakfast and then retired to watch some baseball and start packing. I finally left the hostel around 10:30 and started looking for a grocery store so I could get supplies for the trip to Shanghai. It took me longer than expected but I finally found one and bought some instant coffee and some Lay’s potato chips. But not the normal Lay’s potato chips. These were in a can. And they had a picture of a Chinese lady eating potato chips with chopsticks. And they were “Hot & Sour Fish Soup Flavor.” Good times . . .
After checking out of the hotel and moving my stuff and my roommate’s stuff into the day room that we had, I ventured out again. My first stop was to Starbucks because, you know, I like Starbucks.
After Starbucks, I decided that my last tourist stops of the Xi’an leg of the trip would be to the Drum and Bell Towers. These “sister-towers” are centuries old and, as you probably could have guessed, one of them features drums and the other features bells. I’m not going to tell you which is which.
The Drum Tower is in the Muslim Quarter and the Bell Tower is in the center of the city, though both of these sites are very close together. Both are about eight or ten stories high and give great views of Xi’an. Once again, however, the views were extremely limited by the smog. I have lots of pictures, but there’s not enough space here to post them. Eventually, I’m sure, however, most of them will end up on Facebook, so you can check them out there.
I took the rest of the day easy, watching some television (CCTV 9 is in English) and had some lunch. My main goal was just not to eat anything that might make the 16-hour train ride unpleasant. (I’m on the train now and so far, so good – knock on wood.)
We took the shuttle to the train station, but because of a severe lack of traffic, we got there early, so we hung out in a nearby hotel lobby because the train station was crowded. Some of the group went shopping and I tried some tiny crab snacks. They were chewy and sweet and spicy. A little too fishy for my taste, though. I thought I’d share that story with you because I have a picture and because I’m running out of things to write about. I just had a little Chinese lesson and I’m getting ready to go to bed. That’s it for me tonight. Later!!!
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