China Recount, Part II

Alright, I left off with Beijing, correct? That means we move onto Xi'an. To move between all of the cities in China, we travelled by plane.

I had never heard of Xi'an prior to scheduling my trip, but it turns out to be the home of the famous Terra Cotta Warriors. The dig is pretty impressive. The unearthing and restoration of the statues is still undergoing- there are currently three separate digs on the premises. I got separated from my group at one point and explored one of the digs by myself. I had another Photo Experience while there- a group of extremely uptight businessmen. I rather suspect that one or two of them were locals, who were taking around the other guys as part of a schmoozing mission. I have no concept of why they want pictures with me, but clearly it's a big deal.

I do remember once being told by a Chinese exchange student who lived with us, Yuyu, that green eyes and blond hair are lucky. Perhaps green eyes and red hair are luckier, so by getting a picture with me they have a lucky picture that beats all of their friends? Like collecting Pokemon, and I'm a rare one. I don't know. It was amusing, regardless. 

You may notice that I have pictures of myself and my group of friends (the Party Room group, for the most part), posing in relatively epic model manners, with sunglasses on. This evolved over the course of the trip, and we starting doing "Sunglasses Pictures" in as many cool locations as possible. I believe the picture above was from a tea shop we went to in another temple (they tend to be large campuses w/ multiple buildings) in Xi'an.

The actual city of Xi'an is rather young and hip. There were many wonderful failed attempts at English translation everywhere, like this sign on a checkout stand:

and our favorite, the Friends-Making Clubhouse at Half Past 8. I was never able to get a good picture of it as we went past in our bus, sadly. We think it was a dance club. We also drove past a Seven-Twelve!

Xi'an was a pretty short stop, but I really loved the feel of the city. I would like to go back, should I get the chance. Not really dying to get back to Beijing, it must be said. Up next, we will go to Shanghai!