Hard-Bargaining and Kite-Flying

Hello, it's Katie typing again today and I'm afraid we have 3 days of travelling to inform you all about today, so this might take a while! But it shouldn't be too painful, as at least I can read all of the keys on my keyboard (unlike poor Steve the other day)!

FRIDAY 13th April

Today we decided to head towards the Small Goose Pagoda, we managed to get off at the correct bus stop today, and despite initially heading off in the wrong direction, we were soon turning back and on the right track to get us there! Unfortunately the surroundings for the Small Goose Pagoda weren't as nice as the Big Goose Pagoda - it seemed to be a bit of a barren landscape and then millions of high rise buildings (most of which seemed rather dilapidated), so the climb up the 15 floors didn't really seem very worth it! We still got a picture at the top - Steve set up his timer so we could get both of us in shot, but it took the photo too soon and so I think it will be a rather interesting action pose! We headed down the Pagoda again to have a wander around some of the other buildings and the grounds. When we were wandering around though, we found that most of the buildings had been turned into shops and so there wasn't really that much to see to be honest! There was a very nice display of artwork in one room, but we got pounced on by a very persistent, but friendly, salesman! He got the in-house artist to write our names in Chinese characters, for free - my name is composed of ordinary characters, but Steve took the biscuit and had 2 interesting ones - the 2nd character in his name means Emperor and the third means husband! He tried to get us to buy some artwork, but we weren't sure about it, so we wandered around a small garden area and then decided to go back, as there were some paintings we liked. After a VERY long time of haggling with the poor salesman, we managed to get a suite of 4 paintings (spring, summer, autumn and winter) of 190 Yuan (instead of the R.R.P. of 600 Yuan)!!!!!! The pictures are beautiful and edged in silk, we weren't going to buy them as he wasn't going to let them go for less than 250 Yuan, but as we left he lowered the price again!!! Loaded with our bargain, we left the Pagoda and headed back to the buses so that we could go to the Muslim Quarter to grab some lunch and to go to the Great Mosque. We wandered around the hundreds of souvenir stalls to find some lunch and came across somewhere that did crepes containing some kind of vegetable, it was quite nice and after finishing that we had the rather daunting task of finding the Mosque which was tucked behind a very narrow gauntlet of souvenir stalls! We soon finished our mammoth task and stumbled across our destination (more by luck than judgement I think) and we were wandering around the grounds of the rather ancient Mosque. Lots of the rooms were screened off, as the Mosque is an active place of worship (there was actually some kind of service on whilst we were there). The buildings were interesting to see, as for once they hadn't been completely restored and renovated, so we felt like we were seeing the true Mosque, rather than a modern reconstruction! It did feel kind of odd wandering around, as there were so many people there to worship, but I suppose they wouldn't ask for an entrance fee and let people through if they minded us being there! After a wander around the Muslim market (where Steve bought a rather odd assortment of dried fruits - it's a bit pot luck with what you get and most of it is indistinguishable in taste and appearance) we headed back to the buses to go back to the hostel.

SATURDAY 14th April

Today we decided to tackle the Xi'an City Walls. When we hopped off of the bus, we had a sinking feeling, as we looked across the road and realised we had to get across a rather busy roundabout to get to the South Gate of the Walls! We waited a while, saw an opportune moment, started to cross and then out of nowhere a very fast bus turned up and we had to peg it across the rest of the road! But we made it in one piece and we soon walking up the stairs to the top of the wall and trying to find somewhere to rent some bikes from! We soon found a place to get bikes and in a fool-hardy manner decided to get a tandem bike! After a few tentative pedals we were whizzing along, avoiding potholes and pedestrians! After a while we stopped to take some photos and Steve suggested I had a go at driving the tandem. However, the steering didn't seem to work very well and all that had happened was that we swerved around rather dangerously! By my third attempt I could just about go in a straight-ish line, but with tears streaming down our cheeks from laughing so much at my uselessness, we decided it would be best (and safer) if Steve did the driving! We ended up having to zip around the walls (as we had to get the bike back within 1 hour and 40 minutes) and were only just back in time! We decided to wander back round the wall to the East Gate as we'd seen lots of kit-fliers and wanted a go ourselves (although we hadn't realised just how far we needed to walk). We bought a 'string of kites' so they made a long line when they were flying and we were pretty good at it, although the salesman had been nice enough to get us started - we narrowly avoided a big tree (twice), but we came unhinged when we were trying to avoid another kite and hadn't noticed how low ours had got and I managed to get it tangled in some cables! So our high-flying time was over and we despondently left the wall to find some lunch! We were near the Muslim Quarter and so ended up back there, although we ended up taking a very convoluted route through the back streets to get there (and I must admit I was getting frustrated with Steve's "oh let's just wander in this random direction to get there" attitude - although, as usual his sense of smell didn't let us down and we were soon exploring the streets we'd visited last time). Our indecisiveness meant that we ended up having the same lunch (from the same place) as we had last time and after a little more wandering around we were back on the bus heading to the hostel. Once back we had a sit down and a shower before we were taken out to the Shaanxi Song and Dance Theatre Group. The show was really good (although we had to sit at a table with 6 Germans in front of us, so our view wasn't brilliant) - Steve's hopefully got some good photos of the dancers in their beautiful costumes. It felt like it was over too soon though (even Steve enjoyed himself) and we were being taken back to the hostel. We decided to eat out tonight and ate at a restaurant across the road again, but they forgot to bring us one of our dishes - apart from that it was very nice. Steve was a bit disappointed though, as since starting our malaria tablets he's not been allowed to drink alcohol - only another 97 days to go! The other thing with our tablets is they make us feel sick for about an hour after taking them, although as usual I seem to suffer more from it than Steve! We keep seeing the funniest thing - for some reason they have tanker-type trucks which go around spraying the roads with water (we can't work out why they do this, as it just seems to make the roads very slippery - a moped driver actually came off driving on a road that had just been sprayed today), but the trucks play music (kind of a mix between the style ice-cream trucks play and phone keypad tones) as they drive along, up until today we'd only ever heard them play the tune of 'happy birthday'! Today, we came across one which was playing the tune of 'my heart will go on' from Titanic - how completely bizarre?!?!?!

SUNDAY 15th April

Well, today we had the fun task of packing up our bags, which surprisingly aren't really that heavy. We're not really sure what to do for the rest of the day, as we've checked out of our room, but our train doesn't leave until 19.23! We might have a little bit of a wander later, as we've been able to leave our bags in the hostel check-room thing, but we don't know yet. Despite it being my birthday today (Steve was kindly telling me that I was past my peak now) it's not the most interesting of days, I do get to have the wonderful joy of sleeping on the train tonight on the way to Beijing! But, seeing the dancing last night was kind of my birthday treat. Well, we've got lots of bits and pieces we need to check out about our next flight and the Trail of the Dragon Intrepid tour, so we'd better get going so we don't pay a fortune in internet access fees!

Missing everyone loads, hoping you're all well - found out today that we are able to view the comments you've been leaving us (we just need to do it in a convoluted manner) - so keep talking to us using them! By the way Liz - you've given us a bit of a theme tune to remember this trip by - as we've had "What's that coming over the hill" song stuck in our heads since we arrived! Still it makes me smile and think of you lot every time I start humming it to myself! Catch up with you all again soon!