Ana_Pingyao, China

Day 8 Wed., Sept. 13
We arrived around 7ish in the morning. The town was still quite and no one out. We took a moto-taxi to the hotel we had reservations. We got there and the lady that helped us was trying to book another room, one more expensive of course. She kept insisting that we should take that one. I told her no since it wasn't the price the told me on the phone which was 80 Yuan ($10 US). She claimed that room wasn't ready. So we left our luggage and walked around the cute town which is was inside of a big wall. We found another hotel. Our taxi guy kept following I think he was after commission.

The girl at the reception seemed nicer. She showed us a room, which was very cool, Chinese style. The square wooden bed with curtains hanging from the side and a little table with a tea set. The bed was pretty hard since it only had a thin mattress. But at least we had our own room. We were able to barter and get the room for 80 Yuan.

I was starving, went to find something to eat. By this time all the shops were open. It was a cute street. Beautiful architecture! It was a bit smoggy. I felt like I wanted to cough all the time. The sky was grey and just bla. We found this place that had "English Breakfast" on their window display. We both had an omelet. It was ok! I kept burping the mushrooms right after I ate it. YUMMY!

We walked to the train station and tried to buy tickets for the next night. The only seats left were standing. NO THANK YOU! It was another overnight train. That's pretty tough to do it standing all night. It's not worth it. We went back the hotel to see if they could help us buy it, which usually they do. They have the connections. But the girl wasn't very assuring. She said maybe plus she wasn't that bright and her English was so so. Not a good combination. We left money with her and said to check in with her at night.

I was so sleepy by then and told Tim "let's take a nap." I set the alarm for noon. Only a two hour nap. We have a tendency to sleep for several hours in our naps. But I couldn't function at this point. I felt asleep right away. Waking up was not too bad. Got up and showered. Very refreshing! At least we had hot water. It makes a huge difference.

Wondered around the city. It was a bit run down for the most part, but still beautiful architecture. You could see it was once an important city. It was today that it hit me - I'M SICK OF THE FOOD! I know it has only been a week but I couldn't see myself eating. Everything I eat has that taste - CHINESE. You can't get away from it and the smell. The only thing I saw that I felt like eating was Oreo Cookies. The thought of cheese toast or Spanish rice or Los Ranchos was so good. I kept dreaming and tasting of it.

Walking around I saw an old man making popcorn. That sounded good too. We bought some. It was a bit sweet but not bad. As we walked we kept being starred at. It's pretty normal over here. The few times I would stare back they either smile or looked away. It's funny to have so many people look at you all the time. We walked in this store to look for pants for Tim. And all the employees about 8 and few customers stopped what they were doing and starred at us with a smile. They followed us around the store. I couldn't help but laugh. You loose the sense of personal space. It feels different. Finally one of the ladies spoke in her broken English "where you from?" I responded "CALIFORNIA." And she told the rest of the gang and they all nodded and smiled. A lot of times they just want to know where are you from. It's cute and annoying, since they get in your face. But the ladies are so cute it's hard to get upset. They're really nice.

Kept walking and just wondering around. Stopped at few shops to look at the crafts. They had a lot of antiques as well. I kept eyeing the purses. It was time to eat again, but not Chinese. We spotted a western place. It looked promising. I ordered a chicken sandwich it was OK! NOT bad, NOT good. Edible. Hung out for a while just talking a figuring out our next plan.

Went back to hostel and my gut feeling was right the lady didn't have the train tickets. Tim got really frustrated. We asked if she could find for the next day and she gave another maybe. We left the money with her but Tim decided to look somewhere else for a solution. The town wasn't that big and we pretty much saw everything in one day. I stayed behind. I wasn't feeling too good. Again I kept burping the food.

There was no electricity and it was getting dark. Tim finally got back. He managed to find bus tickets and it only takes 6 hours instead of 12 hours in the night train. I was happy to know we were not going to get stuck in Pingyao for another day.

We walked around at night. The red lamps hanging from the store front looked really pretty. We took a bunch of photos. Went to hostel where Tim booked the tickets. We bumped into the same couple we shared the taxi with the night before. They were taking the bus as well.

Before calling a night went back to the Western restaurant this time for a beer. Beer here was a bit more expensive than in Beijing, but still cheap. It was only $1 US for a big bottle. I can't even count how many beers I've drank on this trip. I know alot more than college it feels like. About an hour later group of other tourist came in and they looked pretty happy. Soon two ladies started dancing. They kept playing from country music, to R&B, to Brian Adams. Then a Carlos Santana song came on "Oye como va..." And sure enough couldn't resist. I joined the ladies on the dance floor. Tim started laughing. It doesn't take much for me to dance. I asked the ladies where they were from. And out of all places there were from HOLLAND! Tim couldn't give the excuse he's Dutch and it's not on his blood to dance that much. BS!


Day 9 Thurs., Sept.14
We had all morning to be lazy. Our bus didn't leave until noon. Got up and went to same place for a Western breakfast. Walked around some more. Finally got my Oreo cookies. I was going to drive Tim crazy with that subject.

Tim bought a small pipe for our collection of things from around the world. I keep thinking we'll have a concoction of stuff from around the world and I've no idea how it would look all together. Hopefully decent, once we get a house one day.

We walked to wait for the bus at the other hostel. We got picked up buy one moto-taxi then dropped us to get picked by another moto-taxi. Then we were waiting for the bust just outside of toll road. It was strange, no bus stop. It's kinda fun that way. You never know what's going to happen but it all works out at the end. We had with us like 5 men just waiting for us to get in the bus. They didn't speak English so it was fun trying to communicate with them. They wanted to know where we were from. The other couple responded Australia and we said America. For some reason they couldn't understand America. They wanted us to show them a map. Finally they got it. And they all nodded at the same time. It's hilarious to see them. They look like cartoon characters. So corky but great! We waited an hour. Finally a bus came and we got on. It was nice bus. Tim was happy he had enough leg room. Driving along was pretty depressing. Everything was grey and dark. It looked isolated. We stopped few times for bathrooms breaks.

Six hours later we arrived in Xian. It looked like a big city, more metropolitan. They dropped us off right near our hotel. The downtown of the city was inside of a big wall about 14 km long. It's probably one of the few walls still standing in China.

The hotel was nice, not what I expected. Then I realized the top floor was the hostel part. We had to gone five stories to our dorm room. Not fun with our backpacks and no elevator. We dropped our bags and came back down to have dinner. We just ate at the restaurant in the hotel. I'm glad we did, the food was great. I had fried rice with beef. I couldn't believe it I actually liked it. A bit spicy, pero OK!

After dinner we asked at the information desk about flights to Tibet. Let me re-phrase that Tim asked. We needed to make a decision soon. Also needed to get the permit to Tibet. Tim got all the numbers and question answered. But wanted a second quote. We tried to walk to a nearby hostel. An hour later we still hadn't found it. The downtown area was far and huge. Tall buildings, big screen everywhere and people dressed very modern and hip. I had the bright idea of "we shoulda called first." Great shoulda, coulda, woulda, shutta upa! Too late for that.

We gave up and just took a taxi back to our hostel. I told Tim let's just thing about it and figure it out in the morning.