Got up at 6:30 on the train. We were stopped at a station, it was not the xian station. At about 7:30 we got to xian after a couple more starts and stops.
took taxis from the train station a few blocks to our hostel. Dropped our bags, and went to find some breakfast. We walked a block over and ended up in the islamic shopping area. We stopped in the first restaurant we found, which was a big mistake. Breakfast was the only thing on their menu, which was bowls of porridge, and a small pita filled with hot peppers and hot sauce. Very spicy.
After breakfast we walked back to the hostel, I wanted to grab my camera. After lots of fussing around we got taken to another building behind and shown rooms. They’re really basic, the teachers said they were expecting something nicer.
We grabbed stuff, and headed to the main bell tower. to the north of it was more of the islamic shopping area. we walked through a long winding alley lined on both sides with stalls to get to a mosque at the center of the area. We admired the mosque for the while. It looked very similar to any temple, but had lots of arabic rather than chinese. on the way out we looked around at the shops. Mostly for sale were cheap knock off belts / shoes/ shirts. Several north-face ones although the quality was horrible.
at the end the teachers bought us some snacks from one of the stalls that were quite good.
Next up was lunch. we continued to the east of the east of the bell tower, to a higher class area of town.
we stopped in a large restaurant of some sort and had a very good meal.
after lunch we went south; to the stone forest. This was the first library in some senses, and is a preserved area full of gigantic stone tablets. they were the original writings of Confucius and many other historically significant writings.
there were legitimate rubbings that you could see made and buy, but they were fairly expensive (300 kuai)
Next up was the city wall. we walked up on the wall, rented bikes, and biked all the way around (8 miles)
the bikes didn’t quite have enough shocks to deal with the rough stone path.
Me and max finished at the same time, so we headed back to the room together. I bought a fake rubbing near the wall for 20 kuai, a much better deal, considering it was identical in every way I could tell.
got back around dinner time. A bunch of people were hanging out in the rooms, since they had either not wanted to bike, or hadn’t wandered around afterwards.
I headed out with a group of people (max and jeremy) others less actively. into the islamic area. We bought and shared various types of street food. There were glutinious rice slabs in some syrup, rice cakes with jelly, noodles, pot stickers, two pieces of dough with some meat mixture between them – all fried, and many others. It was a good meal.
after dinner we decided to check out an arcade we had noticed earlier in the area. There was a crowd of teenagers around the dance machine, and they all seemed quite good at it. This was a fancier version than the US that can also detect and require hand motions. We looked around downstairs as well, which turned out to be just a gambling area.
Walked back to the room to collect belongings and regroup. Went over to a cafe for a bit, got icecream and a lovely view of the city.
Max and I decided to take a look at the nightlife. We walked down the street that was claimed to be active, but really didn’t see much that looked exciting. There were several expensive karaoke ‘clubs’ that looked to cost 50 – 500 kuai for a room.
On the walk back we came across something claiming to be a club. We walked in, and really weren’t expecting what we found. It had loud music, a very small area, tons of staff, and was quite expensive. Coming out after ordering one drink we decided that it was likely either a front for prostitution or mob activity.
Came back at 11, headed to bed.