Xi'an

Leaving Shanghai, we got off to a bumpy start. We had booked a cheap flight to Xi'an on a small Chinese airline which we found online. We went to the airport and found our ticket counter to find out that, oh no, our flight had been canceled! The woman at the counter seemed surprised we didn't know: "Oh, nobody told you? Well, sorry..." She directed us to the help counter and they put us on a flight on China Eastern Airlines (the same airline we took from Korea) which was leaving at the same time and didn't charge us any extra. So it ended up working just fine, but did give us a little scare. The train between Shanghai and Xi'an is about 20 hours, so we we're really hoping to not be subjected to that. Also, the airports in China were strangely quiet and empty. For a country with the biggest population in the world, you would expect the airports to be a little bit hectic. But in every city we visited, they we're quiet, dark and empty.

We flew to Xi'an and arrived there mid afternoon. From the airport, we had to take a hour and 1/2 bus ride into the city. The province that Xi'an is in is pretty small compared to some of the other Chinese provinces. Xi'an is the biggest city in the province at I believe 3.62 million people. But the whole province is about 62 million people. Driving from the airport, I just really found it hard to believe that that many people are hiding in there. I'm not sure exactly what it was, but that hour drive seemed very eerie to me. The sky was incredibly hazy and almost seemed to blend into the dirty, dust covered ground. Much of the area that we drove through was filled with factories and high rise apartments, but it seemed just empty. We were driving on a big highway but were accompanied by few other cars. I didn't see any people out walking on the streets or around the apartments. The buildings looked un-lived in from the outside. There were no cars driving down the streets. It really felt like a ghost town to me. And just left me wondering, where are those 62 million people??

Anyway, after the odd bus ride into town, I eventually did start to see more people and it turned into the small, touristy city of Xi'an. Xi'an is filled with ancient Chinese history and was once the capital of China. The main area of the city (the original city) is surrounded by great, tall city walls. Our little hostel was located right next to the walls, by one of the main gates. It was such a wonderful place, with the best staff you could ask for, a delicious restaurant and great bar (and they offered free beers and tea everyday... beat that!) and comfortable rooms. I really loved this place, and the staff ended up being incredibly helpful to us.

After finding our place and getting settled in, we set out to explore the Muslim quarter in the late afternoon light. Xi'an apparently has a big Muslim history, and the Muslim quarter is now filled with street vendors and hole in the wall shops and restaurants. There's also a mosque in the area that I wanted to visit, but we ran out of time to go back. We peeked in the door at night but it wasn't lit up. But from what I could tell, it looked just like other Chinese temples. So we walked around and explored it all for a while and found some good little gifts.

On a side note: the way you have to bargain with vendors in China is amazing. They inflate their prices so greatly that most guidebooks will recommend you give your starting price at about 10% of what they are asking. We had people go down in price from about 600 yuan all the way to 20 yuan. (That's about $90 down to about $2.50). I've traveled around and done my share of bargaining, but nothing like I experienced in China. You learned to just ignore what their initial price was and decide about how much you would be willing to spend. Then when they're not going to your price start walking away, and 9 times out of ten, they will chase after you and agree to it. It's quite the experience.

After the Muslim quarter, we got some delicious, authentic Chinese food and a small restaurant with no English that our hostel recommended. I got chicken with peanuts (I had it a few other times throughout the trip as well) and was really surprised at how much the Chinese food in China tasted like the Chinese food in America! And we definitely weren't in touristy restaurants catering to foreigners, it was the real deal. It made me glad to know that they don't over Americanize all the food they serve in the States.

Check out Xi'an photos here.