Don't know what time it is- I've been up for way too long and I'm too tired to sleep. I called my mother on the phone and now I'm wonderin the streets
Today I got chewed up and spit back out by this city. It was one of those days.
We were informed by our teacher that all tours had been cancelled for the day because there were people in our group who wanted to shop, and didn’t want to see the sites. Unfortunately the money that I already paid to go on the tours that were cancelled today won’t be refunded, and in order to go to the sites myself I had to pay again. Awesome.
My roommate and I decided to go to the most famous place in all of Xi’an, the Hua Qing Springs. They were constructed during an early dynasty (I don’t remember which one) and were used as a bathing place for princes. In the Tang Dynasty the emperor gave the springs to his most beautiful and favorite concubine named Yang Guifei. They were a respected and often visited site from that time until the present era. The other famous incident which occurred at the Hua Qing Springs was in 1936. At the time there were many warlord factions fighting against each other, and a few of the warlords wanted the help of Chiang Kai Shek (the future ‘President’ of Taiwan). They decided the best way to get him to sign a treaty was to kidnap him, and isolate him at the Hua Qing Springs until he signed a treaty. He never signed the treaty, and they let him go a few months later.
Unfortunately my roommate and I didn’t know how far away the springs were, and I ended up having to pay a 100 RMB taxi fare to get there. I wasn’t happy. And we had to pay the 35 RMB door fee as well. I was already spending more than I wanted to for the day. After getting there and taking pictures for a while we left. As we were on the bus I was looking through my pictures and wondering why they all looked funny. Then I realized that I had never reset the settings from the night before, and all of my pictures were over exposed and ruined. Great.
We get into the city, and wander around for a long time, lost. My feet were hurting. Luckily, as a good offset to the bad morning, we found where we were going – the Muslim Quarter of the city.
Xi’an is far enough west in China that there is a very large Muslim population, and we walked through the Muslim Quarter eating beef and mutton kebobs, looking through the shops, and visited the Grand Mosque. After looking around for a little while I got two new pairs of shoes, they cost me 30 RMB ($4 USD) total. That’s both pair. Then I got a cool scroll from a calligrapher. Normally I wouldn’t buy something like that, but he did the calligraphy first in Arabic, and then next to it in Chinese. It is definitely a unique product you couldn’t get anywhere else in the world.
After walking around the Muslim quarter for a while we decided it was time to go home and rest before we headed out again for the night. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the people here HATE tourists. We tried to get a taxi, but they wouldn’t stop for us. We went to taxis that people were getting out of and asked for them to take us to the hotel, but they refused and told the next people to get in. When we finally did get a taxi back home he took the long way and did a full circle around the city before he took us to the hotel.
We got home and decided that taking a bus was probably the best way to travel. We found a place that we wanted to go, a shopping/food district that all the students apparently hang out at after dark (so says the mysterious ex-pat internet guide). We found the bus route, got on the bus, and headed out. We got to the shopping/food district only to find that it was closed – that it closed every night at 4PM.
With nothing else to do for the night we decided we would just walk the 11.7 km back to the hotel.
Now, I’m not trying to sound negative, but every different city gives a different impression on you. Nanjing is a pretty awesome city. The people are nice, the city is big, and there are lots of cool things to do around town. Shanghai is incredible. There are so many things to do, and so many people. Sure the people might be busier, but you can still meet some nice people – if they have time to talk to you. Dunhuang was a fun city. The people there reminded me of the people in smaller towns from my mission. They would still point and stare at the ‘foreigners’, which is always fun. The people seemed about average; I don’t think I could accurately say whether they were nicer or meaner than other people. It was a good city to visit, but I don’t think that there would be enough to do there to keep me occupied. Xi’an on the other hand, I don’t like this city. The people here seem to have something against everyone that isn’t like them (the reason that there is a Muslim Quarter in the city is because it used to be against the law for a Muslim to live anywhere but the Muslim Quarter). All of the people I have run into here are the Chinese people that people in Taiwan told me about in their horror stories of what it is like on the ‘atheist Mainland’, they just want to take your money any way they can, and they don’t feel bad taking it from you in any sort of unethical way.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will be getting to go see the Terra Cotta Warriors, after which we will be getting back on a train to go back to Nanjing. I’m a little sad that we can’t go somewhere else to see more things and get to know more places, but I am actually really happy to go home. A week is a long time to be away from home. It seems like more than anything this trip has made Nanjing feel like my home. I feel like a visitor, a stranger in these places, but I feel at home when I’m in Nanjing.
We were informed by our teacher that all tours had been cancelled for the day because there were people in our group who wanted to shop, and didn’t want to see the sites. Unfortunately the money that I already paid to go on the tours that were cancelled today won’t be refunded, and in order to go to the sites myself I had to pay again. Awesome.
My roommate and I decided to go to the most famous place in all of Xi’an, the Hua Qing Springs. They were constructed during an early dynasty (I don’t remember which one) and were used as a bathing place for princes. In the Tang Dynasty the emperor gave the springs to his most beautiful and favorite concubine named Yang Guifei. They were a respected and often visited site from that time until the present era. The other famous incident which occurred at the Hua Qing Springs was in 1936. At the time there were many warlord factions fighting against each other, and a few of the warlords wanted the help of Chiang Kai Shek (the future ‘President’ of Taiwan). They decided the best way to get him to sign a treaty was to kidnap him, and isolate him at the Hua Qing Springs until he signed a treaty. He never signed the treaty, and they let him go a few months later.
Unfortunately my roommate and I didn’t know how far away the springs were, and I ended up having to pay a 100 RMB taxi fare to get there. I wasn’t happy. And we had to pay the 35 RMB door fee as well. I was already spending more than I wanted to for the day. After getting there and taking pictures for a while we left. As we were on the bus I was looking through my pictures and wondering why they all looked funny. Then I realized that I had never reset the settings from the night before, and all of my pictures were over exposed and ruined. Great.
We get into the city, and wander around for a long time, lost. My feet were hurting. Luckily, as a good offset to the bad morning, we found where we were going – the Muslim Quarter of the city.
Xi’an is far enough west in China that there is a very large Muslim population, and we walked through the Muslim Quarter eating beef and mutton kebobs, looking through the shops, and visited the Grand Mosque. After looking around for a little while I got two new pairs of shoes, they cost me 30 RMB ($4 USD) total. That’s both pair. Then I got a cool scroll from a calligrapher. Normally I wouldn’t buy something like that, but he did the calligraphy first in Arabic, and then next to it in Chinese. It is definitely a unique product you couldn’t get anywhere else in the world.
After walking around the Muslim quarter for a while we decided it was time to go home and rest before we headed out again for the night. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the people here HATE tourists. We tried to get a taxi, but they wouldn’t stop for us. We went to taxis that people were getting out of and asked for them to take us to the hotel, but they refused and told the next people to get in. When we finally did get a taxi back home he took the long way and did a full circle around the city before he took us to the hotel.
We got home and decided that taking a bus was probably the best way to travel. We found a place that we wanted to go, a shopping/food district that all the students apparently hang out at after dark (so says the mysterious ex-pat internet guide). We found the bus route, got on the bus, and headed out. We got to the shopping/food district only to find that it was closed – that it closed every night at 4PM.
With nothing else to do for the night we decided we would just walk the 11.7 km back to the hotel.
Now, I’m not trying to sound negative, but every different city gives a different impression on you. Nanjing is a pretty awesome city. The people are nice, the city is big, and there are lots of cool things to do around town. Shanghai is incredible. There are so many things to do, and so many people. Sure the people might be busier, but you can still meet some nice people – if they have time to talk to you. Dunhuang was a fun city. The people there reminded me of the people in smaller towns from my mission. They would still point and stare at the ‘foreigners’, which is always fun. The people seemed about average; I don’t think I could accurately say whether they were nicer or meaner than other people. It was a good city to visit, but I don’t think that there would be enough to do there to keep me occupied. Xi’an on the other hand, I don’t like this city. The people here seem to have something against everyone that isn’t like them (the reason that there is a Muslim Quarter in the city is because it used to be against the law for a Muslim to live anywhere but the Muslim Quarter). All of the people I have run into here are the Chinese people that people in Taiwan told me about in their horror stories of what it is like on the ‘atheist Mainland’, they just want to take your money any way they can, and they don’t feel bad taking it from you in any sort of unethical way.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will be getting to go see the Terra Cotta Warriors, after which we will be getting back on a train to go back to Nanjing. I’m a little sad that we can’t go somewhere else to see more things and get to know more places, but I am actually really happy to go home. A week is a long time to be away from home. It seems like more than anything this trip has made Nanjing feel like my home. I feel like a visitor, a stranger in these places, but I feel at home when I’m in Nanjing.
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