Xi'an
Well, I survived a 16 hour train ride with some kind of food-problem (ie, had to keep visiting the hole in the ground they called a toilet - by golly it was an experience I hope never to re-live - although it could have been much worse, ie. dirtier). Bowels aside, it was a smooth ride, smoother than from beijing to shanghai, and we met a couple of English speaking people on the train who were really nice (we being the two other people from Queen's who happened to be on the same train - we're not travelling together - I'm a much better loner). I arrived this morning at the train station at about 9am. By 11:30 I was out of my hostel and on the street ready to party! I went across the street (via underground - there's lots of these things here, so you need to do very little street crossing. That's a good thing because the crazy driving in Shanghai is NOTHING compared to this! This is worse than Beijing even - that's bad) to the bell tower. There is a fantastic view of the bell tower from the lounge of the hostel. The hostel itself is on the third floor of this post-office building. It looks really cruddy and gross, but it's really nice once you get past the hallway. Anyways, I checked out the bell tower today - beautiful, caught a traditional musical performance (3 songs) and went on my way. I went to see the Stone Tablet Museum, collections of Chinese Calligraphy engraved into stone. It might have been more interesting if I could read it, but I still recognized Confucius and mencius (by their name-plates). Lastly I decided to climb the city wall (about 40 steps, but then it circles the entire old city, in which the Bell Tower is smack in the middle). I walked for about an hour and a half and covered about a quarter of the wall - South Gate to West Gate). It was wonderful, and oh so tiring. I still promise I'm working on the website, it's just not going to happen when I'm in Xi'an or wherever else I decide to go!! Well, I'll elaborate later, my internet time is up, and I'm hungry for dinneR!Bye
posted by Jenn @ 8:02 a.m.
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