Going to Xi’an

Sorry for the delay in posts – we have to go to an internet café to get on the Web.
Today we had to wake up early to make our trip across the border from Hong Kong to Shenzen to catch our flight to Xi’an. The flight was about USD$100 cheaper flying out of Shenzen so I guess it was worth the two bus rides to get there. All in all it wasn’t too bad since we started early in the a.m and there weren’t too many people yet. The bus company was very efficient too. We each had a sticker that we placed on our clothes and the bus company personnel were constantly on the lookout for us to point us to the right buses. We actually got to the Shenzen airport about 2 hours before our flight.

At the airport we checked in, got some Chinese RMB at the ATM and ate a quick lunch. Annemarie had a wonton soup and I had just a noodle soup with pork. Yumm! Afterwards, one of the waitresses came by to get some help with her English. She kept wanting Bernard to explain the meaning of the name “Johnny”. She couldn’t figure out why she couldn’t find the name in the dictionary and he was having a tough time explaining to her that Western names don’t really have meanings sometimes. Then he tried to explain that “Johnny” was really just a informal version of “John”. The she was asking what the domain name potion (x5power.com) of the persons email meant! We’re pretty sure she left more confused then she started!
The flight to Xi’an was pretty uneventful and took about 2.5 hours. We landed and collected our luggage and Bernard’s dad was there to greet us and take us to the hotel. It was a short cab ride to the hotel but certainly not uneventful! The cab driver took an exit off ramp, saw the traffic jam up ahead and proceeded to reverse back up the exit ramp! It was just another day of driving around in China but we were a little nervous for the 300 meters he was backing up against traffic with no emergency lane.

We got to the hotel and decompressed for a bit then took a walk through a local market and went out to dinner. We forgot to take some pictures but it was delicious. We had: three trays of dumplings (shrimp and 2 lamb), a plate of stir-fried celery, a plate of some other veggies, a dish of spicy bean noodles, a lamb neck and some soup with lamb. We were stuffed!

Dinner! Well, not for us.

Afterwards, we walked back through the market to the hotel and bought some snacks along the way to try. There was this candy that kinda looked liked white cotton candy wrapped around peanuts, some dried peppers, some spicy peanuts, and some Chinese pastries.We were pretty beat by the time we got back to the hotel and crashed pretty early. The weather was cool so we left the windows open but that was a big mistake. Xi’an is apparently another city that never sleeps because the honking, construction, and hawkers selling stuff hadn’t stopped by 2am when we finally got up to close the windows.