Friday, March 18, 2011

Day 5- Relaxation Nation in Xian

We are awoken 10 minutes before our arrival in Xian, and clean our room and get ready to head into the new town. Right away, Chinese men are peeking into the windows to find Americans, and wait outside of our car to carry our luggage and try to get us to agree to a taxi ride. Right away we upgrade our tickets for a 6 person room to a 4 person (hooray!) and then head to our hotel – which is very nice and right in the middle of the town.

After a long respite in our nice new room, we head out to town to look around and do a little shopping. We first head to the Bell Tower and Drum tower, which again, without a guide, are fun to look at, but we have to idea what they are for and why they are there. Regardless the buildings are very pretty and it is nice.

Shopping is fun, I am getting much better at bartering. We grab a LARGE lunch at a muslim/Chinese (weird mix) restaurant and head to the city wall. Xian is one of the last walled cities back in feudal times. We rent bikes and ride around the wall, which is very nice. We have to pay extra when we return the bikes, as we are 10 minutes past their “closing time.” We are both very angry as they are snickering while requesting the money – but we hand it over anyway.

We head to the local mall, and some other local shops, before heading out to the most American style dinner at Pizza Hut, which is still very Chinese. There is corn on everything! After a quick stop at the local drugstore we head back to the hotel room to unwind while playing uno and drinking wine.

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