Final thoughts

I’ve never consistently read anyone’s blog (let alone write one) so not sure what the customary ending to one should be.  However, I’m a sucker for conclusions, morals and Hollywood feel good endings so here is my attempt at reflecting on this trip and what it meant to me personally.

I’ve been going through the entries and adding additional comments and pictures, not really changing the content but making it more readable and of course removing all the embarrassing spelling mistakes.  So if you are extra extra bored you can revisit the blog   Speaking of which, I was presently surprised to see how many visitors we had over the course of this trip.  The below snapshot shows the number of views per day (total trip =  1917).  Thank you everyone visiting, hopefully if you’ve not been to China before we’ve sparked your interest and imagination to visit.  As I’ll extrapolate below it was an absolutely amazing experience. 

visitors per day

Of course another heart warm shout out to my sister Dominika who had to upload pictures one by one!  And since she was so gracious in sharing that wonderful picture of me, I thought I return the favor and show you what she looks like in real life and not her heavily photoshoped face book pics…

real Dom, love u sis!

Which brings me to Mr. Konstantin. Way back in one of the first blogs when I introduced him I mentioned he is crazier then me, well its true! However, I could not ask for a better friend to travel with. He was up for every adventure and made more than his share of them! From running up the wall of China in 40 degree whether and high altitude to charming Chinese beauties in a conga line, there was no saying no! I’m glad that way back in the planning stages, where things were not looking “crystal clear” he just told me to plan it out, give him a total and he’d be in. Kos, glad u came and looking forward to Europe and South Africa! Oh and special thanks for the “hotel lobby incident,” I totally own you for that one.

Konstantin

So what happened there at the end of the trip and the lack of blogging? Most of it was due to exhaustion; in Hong Kong I’d wake up at 8am do the blogging, be out the door at 10am, do a bunch of sight seeing, back home at 8pm, go out until 5am, and loop the next day. By the time we got to Shanghi we’d wake up at noon, do few hours of sight seeing then go party till morning hours. Priorities changed as our bodies started shutting down. The intensity of what we were doing for 2 weeks on top of the sickness that bothered us (unsuccessfully!) through out, started settling in. That’s not to say that the last leg was not fun, in fact thanks to some amazing people we’ve met (hi Joyce!) we had a blast. The last day in China we both got about 2 hours of sleep, on the plane ride I slept for about 4 hours then Sunday because of the jet lag about 4 more. On Monday I was at work at 8am, by 4 the sickness that I thought was gone came back with a vengeance. However, there was no rest for me… The only reason I hesitated going on this trip was my Hockey teams playoffs were running at the same time and I was going to miss it. It’s the first season with these guys/gals and I just had a ton of fun, most of any sports I’ve played. Long story short they pushed through to the final championship game without me and this Monday, day after I came back the final game was on! So after throwing up twice before the game I was in there at 10:20pm… and we WON!

Division 8 Champions

Unfortunately, playing the game and going to work was probably not the smartest decision to make in regards to my health but the spirit of the trip did not leave me yet. I missed the following day at work and had 2 half days to follow it up. Only today do I feel close to 100% back.

Hence, I had time to reflect on this whole experience and write this final blog entry.

How do I feel about this trip?

The best way I’d describe it is that it set my soul on fire! Going into this trip I fully expected a mixed experience and wanted to set my mind into a state of acceptance, to concentrate on the pleasant not the unpleasant. Maybe I succeeded too well, or the Chinese re-education camp did its job (the real reason we stopped blogging at the end . Either way my preconceptions were totally blown away. Having lived around Asian people through out my life in North America really means nothing in comparison to going into a city of 14.5 million Chinese where you are a guest and an outsider. Similar to Peru trip, the switch of perspectives is very refreshing and educational. No longer do you feel as part of the society with a defined role in it, but now you are the outsider observing and interacting with no restrictions and in fact being encouraged to do so. Having been educated in Poland and Canada, my knowledge of Chinese culture and history is ridiculously thin. Marco Polo’s travels and the colonization of China (that was a tricky topic too) were as much as my history books reveled (oh and the fact that Chinese invented fireworks). Therefore being able to read about the history and then visit the sites next day was a very rewarding experience.

Beyond the historical parts of China, it’s main cities were also a twist on my expectations. I, like a lot of people, had the view that the Chinese people are a bit rude due to their close proximity to each other. How many of you have the perception of a busy street in Hong Kong where everyone is pushing through in rush hour? I expected to be constantly fighting Now, I do know that there was a massive re-education effort in China (especially Beijing) to eliminate some behaviors that westerners would consider rude, but we’ve ran into them all anyways. We were on totally pack subways in Hong Kong where people acted no different then people in Toronto Canada. We pushed through crowds in Xi’an getting back from the Big Goose Pagoda water show with no incident or anger. There was no rudeness, it’s the accepted patter of traffic for people and vehicles. One of the most amazing things (similar to Peru) is how traffic operates. Everyone is cutting everyone else off constantly but not in a dangerous way and NO ONE gets mad, ever! The traffic is more like flowing water where everyone accepts that the rules are loose. Organized chaos. In North America we get mad if someone changes lanes a car length in front of us without signaling. You don’t respect me and my vehicle, putting me in dangerous situation. Not so in China. It’s a shift of perception for sure, but one we got into in minutes and were having fun with (ie. trying to cross the street).

As an aside, one of the most rude experiences was displayed not by the Chinese but by the Slovakian Olympic team. While waiting in an hour long line at the great wall to toboggan down, a group of 5 Slovakian athletes stood in front of us. At one point a local man was cut off inadvertently by the group from his wife and child, naturally tried to get reunited. After doing so, the Slovakians in their language started blasting him and the Chinese on how rude they are and recanted their past experiences of being shoved and bumped, in a very crude language. Well not 10 minutes after that they started inviting and pushing through members of their team from the back of the line, with no regard to the people behind. Now what’s worse, a men trying to reach his family but unable to communicate it to foreigners or someone who on one hand insults a person behind their back for rudeness then turns around and like a hypocrite is even ruder to others? Perception and stereotyping can be tricky things, that’s why experiencing China in person is so special. At no point that I remember did Kosio or I get angry at anyone (other then street vendors) because of being pushed or cut off.

Before I get to the people of China, I wanted to mention that yes our experience was a bit filtered traveling through big cities and especially Beijing (0.5 million poor people moved out of the city, traffic on roads cut in half, behavior clean up). Probably the closest we’ve gotten to an authentic city was Xi’an, but that was actually the city we felt had the happiest people. Everyone had a smile and the traveler population was very very small. Especially fun was the Big Goose Pagoda water show where at 9pm kids and adults gathered in the hundreds around water fountains, splashing and having fun (daily event). Next time we visit, a more rural experience would be in order. I’ve heard other travelers talk about how rundown and poor the rural China is and although I didn’t get the other sides perspective, I can compare it with Peru and its drastic juxtaposition of wealth. I’ve read criticism since coming back about how China spends 7billion on health care and 16billion on education per year yet the Olympics cost them 40billion, put money where it belongs. Or how we should free Tibet. I’m in no way an expert on the political or economic topics of China, but I am weary of hippie activists looking for a cause. How much did the US spend on the Iraq war? Did you know that the Tibetans, not long ago, were a society where only the top cast of priests was considered human? Quite different then the image presented by the Dolly Lama when he photo opted with bishop Desmond Tutu in Seattle Did you know that the Tiananmen square protests were allowed for so long because there was an internal struggle in the government between moderates and extremists as to how to handle it and only after the extremists consolidated power did the massacre occur? I’m not going to defend the Chinese government, I actually think they are holding back their people and belong more in a Gorge Orwell 1984 setting, but I really despise blind activism and the shallow conversations in American media. Devil is in the details and solutions are not black and white.

So what about the people of China? Well each city gave us different impressions.
Hong Kong, busy and engaged in themselves. Hey it’s the most western city right!
Xi’an, the most engaging and happy of all our stops.
Beijing, really hard to tell because EVERYONE was into the Olympic spirit. The best I can summarize is that they were really proud of their accomplishment, talking about the athlete’s performances, the way the city changed to host the event, etc.
Shanghi, sad to say during the day people seemed a bit wretched, but the night life is where they came to life and were having fun.

However the details are where the richness lies. From conversations we had about Christianity in China to role of Olympics, these were the most reveling moments. Consider this conversation I had with a young woman at a club that approached me after first failed attempt at communication. At one point she explained to me why in Chinese culture, people will agree with you even though they don’t understand you. It’s because they have a strong concept of “face” and not understanding makes them look ignorant and loose “face.” A bit later she told me about how traditionally women are supposed to be shy and proper. To which I tried to answer that her approaching me shows the opposite, crass bravery. To which she replied, “No, I approached you because I have no face to loose.” This in turn lead to an amazingly reveling conversation about what women deal with in China, like being unwanted in a family that is allowed only one child and it’s hoping for a boy. Details…

One also has to mention the ton of tourists that we’ve met along the way. From all over the world these people all had a sense of adventure about them, from people traveling and teaching English, to couples taking a year off for world travel, single adventurers who spent last 2 weeks in Mongolia not exchanging a full sentence with anyone, groups of friends and lost souls. Conversations that are hard to find in our daily lives were unavoidable on this trip.

So why is my soul on fire? Maybe it’s the level of activity we sustained, maybe it’s the amazing places and people we encountered, maybe it’s the fresh unique experiences that knocked me out of my comfort zone. I really thought after a week I’d be able to reflect and answer that question, but to no avail. The blog brings you closer to the experiences I had and that’s the best I can do. We went in as tourist in charge of what we want to do and visit, but at the end of the trip China was dictating the terms and we were following in step listening to the rhythm and having fun. As Kosio put it, it’s a trip of a life time…

Zaijian, and hope you come out on the next adventure…

signing off! Filip.

Shanghai, bugs

We arrived in Shanghai to a very rainy city.  Our hostel has a sweet bar on top of the building with a view on the downtown core and the night light show.  The one photo of the napkin is to show to what type of conversation we are reduced in clubs:)  Its a ton of fun.

We went out for dinner with some of Konstantin’s EA coworkers and we ended up eating a bunch of fried silk worms…

I can still taste the crunchy curry like monsters…  But the rest of the food was delicious and the company was fun!

Again I’ll let the pictures speak.

Beijing, the wall

We’ve built up a bit of a backlog and don’t have the time or energy right now to describe all of it:)  Need to enjoy the last day in China!  So I’ll summarize and let the pictures speak for themselves.

The last two days in Beijing we went around the city exploring, including the Temple of Heaven complex.  Afterwards we hit up the number one Mongolian Hot pot in Beijing which was quite interesting when it turned out nobody spoke a lick of English.  After minutes of negotiations and demonstrations we ate what was an excellent meal.  We even got to educate some tourists who arrived after us:)

The next day we woke up bright and early to make a trip to the Great Wall of China!  Hence the overload of pictures!  We ended up running up a mountain on the wall which left us half dead considering the elevation change but was an experience.  Then it was back down the mountain in that little sled, very fun.

Enjoy.

Beijing, ducks & more cowbell

Waking up late at 11 seems to be our pattern in Beijing.  Considering
that we were out until 4-5? That’s a solid 6-7 ours of sleep:). Got
hostel breakfast and jasmine tea, then we were off to the Forbidden
City!  As Kos put it, forbidden unless u have 120 rmb.  As you’ll see
from the pictures it’s massive and beautiful.  With gardens, statues,
very interesting architecture and of course massive buildings.  At
times it felt like we were in some Kung fu movie with thousands of bad
guys about to fill up the court yard.  Walking the few miles through
it’s center one can just imagine being brought in front of the
emperor.  At first traversing gigantic court yards and gourd houses,
until reaching the inner gardens in the back.

When we finally reached the end we ended up at the infamous Tiananmen
square (I think we found where the tank and pedestrian met).  Took
some photos with the gigantic painting of Mao and just walked around.
To be honest, I imagined the square as well as painting MUCH bigger.

We had to rush back to the hostel because we had reservations for a
Peking roasted duck dinner and opera.  The restaurant  was the biggest
duck based in Asia, and it was supposed to be world famous.  It had a
massive sign with it name out front which was as long as a sentence.
We joked that the name translated “round eye eat rat, think duck” .
However joking aside the food was HEAVENLY!  I expected good food but
not to get blown away…  The cook arrived with a cart on which he
proceeded to cut up the duck and serve the different parts on separate
plates.  One funny incident was when at the beginning of the meal the
staff brought us onions and some sauce.  We thought it was snacks and
consumed the thing in no time.  When the duck arrived our waitress
demonstrated how ur supposed to wrap the duck in pancake and add the
onion and sauce, of which we had none left… Ops.  The one bad thing
about the whole experience was my insistence on eating duck brain…
Ya that picture where i’m holding up a piece of food is the head.  I
say it was bad because I almost threw up several times after that.
Usualy I can eat stuff like that np but combined with my ongoing
sickness I really strugled.

Duck brain incident aside we headed for the Beijing opera.  Our hostel
manager is close to the theater as his mother used to work there and
droped us off with a few backround stories.  As you walk in the
performers are actualy painting themselves in a setup room, all part
of the show.  There was also a crew there from CBC.  The show was much
more westener oriented than the one in Hong Kong.  Only 1 hour long
and with subtitles… Yes there was cowbell.. But this time they
didn’t let the village idiot handle it so it was enjoyable.  This show
was also much more physical with elabrate fighting scenes that
involved juggling, fire breathing and acrobatics.  All in all there
were two stories.  One of a defeated leader running home to his wife
after battle.  Who tried to console him with a sword dance and wine.
Then killed herself to free him up for a sneaky escape out of the
palace.  The second was about a young female bandit with a ghost
companion and a band of theves.  They robbed a bank and had to face
off against a fire breathing god and his troops.  Fun!

Then we walked around tianamen square and some native alleys, on our
way to the hostel.  Drinks and off we went to the same place as last
night.  Much better then during all the rain but still no Xi’an.   We
met a few interesting people from all corners of the world And a few
not so interesting.  Like totaly wasted Americans from NY who were
friendly (sharing gigantic shot of whiskey) but moronic.  One put his
feet on the bar, 30 seconds later he almost broke his neck on a table
while crashing backwards… I think we got back around 5 again.

Beijing, the Olympics

Around 7 am we arrived at Beijing west station (the gigantic building in the pics) and grabbed a 20 min ride to our hostel.  Which is located by the Forbidden city, as in right next to it!  The mood turned somber as I got a mail from my sister about the american getting stabbed in Beijing.  Never during this whole trip did we feel unsafe, in fact quite the opposite but this news made us a bit uneasy.  We are not exactly immersed in news or have such taboo conversations with locals but there is NO news of that incident anywhere but the net.  Everyone at the hostel of course knows but its like an unspoken secret:)

Since checkout and olympic events were at 12 we decided to walk around a little bit in the royal gardens.  This was an amazing experience as on a Sunday afternoon the locals flooded the park for all sorts of exercise.  This ranged from clapping and chanting to a sort of balancing racquet ball (see pics), to sinning, to ti-chi, to meditation, to dancing to..  At one point we set our tired butts in a group of singing people and a lady with her son came over, made him speak english to us “Hi, we are sinning in the park,” “..it’s free of charge” then she hands us a sinning sheet, which is of course all in Mandarin so we can’t participate!  Anyhow, they explained that this was the Olympics theme song “Beijing Welcomes you”  see the video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvSRkY4eEfM We did play a few of the exercises and it was an awesome way to wash away the uneasy moments of earlier.

Then I was off to the Olympics!!!  My ticket was for 12:30 at the Capital Gymnasium for men’s volleyball preliminary matches (2 in total).  Before I get to the actual games I just want to say that the crowd was very fun.  My tickets were in a section populated entirely by locals.  The little kid in the pictures wrapped in a Chinese flag was sitting right beside me:)  There were groups of people all dressed together that were organized into cheering troops (we were told they are from different companies).  Those troops would cheer “ja jo” which I think means lets go.  The funny part was that they would get “kidnapped” by tourist with flags who would make them yell “ja jo, USA” or “Ja jo, Bra-zil”.  They were having fun either way.  My voice being very delicate at that point, I joined in a few but mostly clapped.  Not too far away was a Polish contingent from Poznan, so I had to introduce myself.

As for the games, the first match was between USA and Venezuela.  Venezuela had more fans (joined ranks with Brazilians) but the loud americans started running around the stadium and the Chinese absolutely loved that, joined in with the USA chants!  The first two sets were a blow out for the USA, the gigantors dominated the Venezuelans whose faces of agony and confusion were displayed on the big screens.  However, things started to shift dramatically in the 3rd, our hosts, tired of seeing a boring game and realizing they might only get 3 out of 5 sets slowly shifted their cheering in support of Venezuela, the Venezuelan fans realizing the american brash ingenuity started kidnapping … i mean enlisting … local cheering groups.  On the court, the american setup man, whos trickiness was keeping the Venezuelan team form setting up good blocks, started limping due to a calf injury.  Then on the 13th point, the dominance was broken as the Venezuelans fought off at least 3 american spikes and scored one of their own.  The stadium went nuts.  American setup man went for rehab.  The following two sets were close ones but went to Ven.  The fifth was an epic back and forth battle, but with their setup man full of drugs and read to return the americans broke away and pulled off the win.  That was fun!

The next match was not.  Egypt got absolutely destroyed by Brazil.  They had this one player who I called “Ahmed the powerfully inaccurate” who was their only effective spiker, but the Brazilians realizing this in the first 10 points basically set a 3 man block every time:)  Over in 3.

At this point I was ready to head back to the hostel to join Kosio for a night on town … BUT on the gigantic screen they announced matches for the evening BULGARIA vs CHINA (Kos is bulgarian) and POLAND vs GERMANY.  I mean come on, how could we miss that?  I met up with Kos, we went back to the stadium and tried the scalpers outside.  500yen for one ticket ($80)!  Ya I know thats not much compared to US prices but you must understand we are in Chinese mentality and prices, so it was an absolute slap in the face insult.  We went for food and returned at 8:05 (match started at 8), got the tickets for 200 yen!  Bargain baby!

The China vs Bulgaria match was interesting because of the local crowd, there were nuts but Bulgaria was way better.  To the point where it looked like it was going to be a 3 set blow out.  However in the 3rd, the Chinese put on an absolutely gut wrenching performance in which they stole a set away in overtime.  You could see they were playing for pride and the crowd loved it.  However, the 4th set was another blow out for Bulgaria.  Kos was happy:)

Then onto my main event (10pm) Poland vs German!  First few points I thought this one was going to take 5 sets of overtime.  They were so evenly matched, but then the Polish team started to take control thanks to some brilliant back court recovery of spikes.  The crowd was thing at that point due to the time but the most rowdy.  The Polish fans bigger in numbers were exhorting their dominance on the poor germans (ya the whole thing felt like a reversed WWII reenactment), not even the German players and couches attempts at stirring their fans was effective as the Poles would drown them out.  The game was over in 3 sets of glorious Polish dominance!

After that we headed back to the hostel hanged out with a few people.  Actually heard some horror stories about India which I wont mention because they are quite horrid.  Then tried the Beijing party district (over 200 bars)  however what I failed to mention is that Beijing was getting absolutely flooded the whole day, so only a few bars were open and they were quite lame at that…

As a cultural aside; the last bar we went into (3:30am) was full of Irish guys and at the bar 3 Mongolian hookers:). As I was walking around Kos comes up to me and asks if I’ve seen anything interesting. I say no, u? Well there are 3 Mongolian hookers at the bar. I look over and sure enough there are 3 women staring at us from the bar. I thought he was joking and told him ha ha funny. His response, “no dude I talked to them, and they’re from Mongolia and I asked what they do and they implied hookers”. So what does one do when faced with a bar full of drunk Irish and 3 unemployed Mongolian hookers?… We ran as fast as we could! God dam Mongolians always breaking my shifty wall!

I had a few drinks, read all ur emails in regards to that special day and we called it a night.  THANKS FOR ALL THE WISHES, cya soon!

Xi’an, last day

Ha ha, yes I realize that my last blog was about getting sick and then I went silent.  Well we’re alive, but as of yesterday evening or today morning I lost my voice:(.  However, Kos and I spirits are high and we are in full swing.
Speaking of which, there is so much to update on.  The last day in Xi’an was to be short as we had a train scheduled at six. After cleaning and packing we picked a few interesting sites on the map and did what we enjoy most so far … walk around. It had rained that night and the temperature was cool, not the insanity of past few days. We ended up in a few markets, temples and even attempted to climb the city walls. Surprisingly that was easy because it’s builders made it slant with small steps for footholds (would they then pour some kind of hot liqid on us?)  Regardless, after a few hours of wondering the streets we headed back to the hostel to get ready for the train.

There Kosio befriended one of hostel guides and we had quite an interesting conversation.  The guy was no more then 25 and a practicing Buddhist who grew up in Xi’an.  Some of the topics of conversation:

* Kung Fu panda caused quite a controversy in China, because it used the Chinese culture but implanted american ideals, like the “u can be whatever you want to be.”  Apparently the Chinese thought it was an attempt to implant those western ideas in China by packaging them in a cartoon.  Kos and I tried to explain that it was more like the american film industry looking for a new hook on a movie and raping the Chinese culture for it.
* Apparently the fastest growing religion in China is Christianity.  The biggest holiday?  Christmas!  The young people are enthralled by american culture and for them traditional religions are boring where as Christianity is exciting.  Our friend actually attended a Christian mass out of curiosity, which was held in an apartment building.
* The american politics and why Obama is a cultural movement in america!

Then we were off to the train, which was a 14 hour overnight ride.  Not much to say about that, slept most of it in a 4 bed cabin with a Chinese family.

So that was it for Xi’an, Kos and I both agree that this was the best city so far.  Small enough for comfortable exploration, yet choke full of cultural things, not to mention a booming night life!

Beijing bring it on!

A message from the sister

Today (our today: the 11th) is Filip’s 28th birthday !!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!

Xi’an, the Olympic Spirit

After yet another late night in Xi’an we were a bit worn out and decided to take it easy today.  That plan got a little screwed up as we had a visitor at 8am, more on that later.  So after blogging, email, buying train tickets, bank, a few markets I was back in the hostel ready to sleep.  Kosio was on the opposite schedule, sleeping in the morning.  The plan was to go out to the Tang Dynasty Sinning and Dancing.  We even had ‘secret’ hookups through our tour guide, who knew one of the dancers in the show.  This was to be done outside of hostel authorities, hence the 8am visit.  Unfortunately, it all fell through when the show got canceled due to low attendance…

It seems all of China was hell bent on seeing the Olympic opening games!  Which in the end turned out just fine as we ended up staying at the hostel for a dumpling party and the opening ceremonies.  The crowd was a mixture of locals and travelers.  The ceremonies were of course broadcast in Mandarin but we had 3 translators with us.  Sarah, Marta and Clizia; from our terracotta army tour.  Right beside us was a table of natives which was very fun at first, as they kept throwing us tidbits about the olympics and were sending the local vodka and juice for the girls.  Fun until one of them got quite a bit drunk and started getting a little friendly, at which time we had to put Kos and I as a buffer.  Then he started ‘hugging’ with another guy and they were falling all over the place…  Anyhow, we said buy to the girls as they were off to catch a train to their boat tour of Yan river (so jealous!).  When we came back down the situation got a bit worst, as one of the girls at the table with them tried to leave, to the great disapproval of the angry drunk.  We almost had to get involved (really hard to judge the situation given the lack of cultural context) but the girl was giving back verbally pretty well so we decided not to interfere unless they physically did something.  However, things returned to normal after a few minutes and the group left on somewhat good terms (go figure).  Anyway, the night ended on a good note as we talked to a few more locals and non locals (one mentioned that the beijing spruce up cost china 200billion yan alone, will have to check that number!  some info here http://english.pravda.ru/sports/games/06-08-2008/106003-beijing_olympics-0), played more foosball!

I do catch a few articles here and there that mention the Olympics as a PR disaster for China.  Realizing that we are a bit sheltered from the news, I’m really curious to get back and see if thats true (one incident I did hear about is the 3 Japanese journalists getting roughed up by police).  The view from our perspective is very positive.  The view that is mostly based on spruced Xi’an which is a large city somewhat modernized.  I actually like the atmosphere and people here a bit better then in Hong Kong.  Its nowhere near the situation I saw in Lima Peru.  Besides that one club incident we’ve not seen a military presence and events like the water show at the Wild Goose Pagoda show us happy and playful people.  We’ve been told that the view outside the cities is a bit different (with poverty).  Regardless of what the situation, we view it from a perspective presented to us by our guests and that gives off a lot of pride in their culture and achievements.  A very contagious attitude.

Speaking of which; the opening ceremonies were very cool.  Our personal favorite were the gigantic footprints in the sky (fireworks) and the jet that filmed the thing, the ‘live’ scroll that was filled up as the show went along.  We actually stayed for the whole country presentation as we had Bulgaria, Canada, Italy, USA & Poland to cheer on!  Fun to see random people go wild as their country comes out.  During Polands coming out, I of course gave them hell and was joined in support with our table as well as a few locals:)

Also appologies for the quality of the blogging lately as I’ve been battling a few almost illnesses.  Currently I might be developing the bird flu or hopefuly (and more likely) its the thing Kos battled through in Hong Kong…  but he battled through it like a Chinese trooper and so shall I.  Today we are taking a train to Beijing and just in time as the Olympic spirit has taken us over!

Xi’an, Terracotta Army

We arrived home from the pub crawl around 4-5? and woke up 8am for the Terracotta soldiers tour. Breakfast, coffee and a wait for the late tour bus, we were off to see one of the wonders of the world.

Our group consisted off; Our fearless leader miss Cha Cha, who declared to be 25 and single within 5min to the group:) Chinese vallentines was yesterday). The driver Mr Wan. 3 girls from Italy that spoke 5 languages including Mandarin. 2 Irish lads, Swiss couple, and a Canadian and American adventurer.

This rag tag group set out on an hour ride to the site of one of the worlds wonders. You can read all about it on this wikipedia site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army Long story short, the army was created around 2000 years ago for the first Qin Emperor who beat everyone else up, restructured the empire, started the construction of the first wall of China, and was a ruthless tyrant.

The site was a gigantic complex in what seemed like nowhere but was done super fancy. A whole complex was built around the sites, plus a tourist shopping mall to boot! The wonder itself was impressive in both its size and the detail care with which it was constructed. Each individual soldier has a unique face, body shape & height, as well as armor details. The one thing that I was really interested in seeing was the actual tomb of the emperor but its not yet excavated because of mercury they used for security:

‘To prevent outside invasions, Emperor Qin Shihuang ordered a full range of precautions. It is said that besides poisonous mercury, booby traps with automatically ejected arrows were installed in the tomb chamber to deter would-be robbers. Anyone who dared to break in would certainly die a violent death. ‘

See more details here http://china.org.cn/english/culture/229549.htm

It is said that the burial chamber is a map of china with mercury rivers and all sorts of jewelry depicting cities, stars etc. I guess I’ll have to come back one day…

One curious ‘fact’ mentioned by our tour guide is that there was heavy security around the complex with our IDs being checked. When we asked our tour guide for the reason she declared it was to keep Israelies out because of bomb threats. Funny I thought things changed with that? We assumed she meant the Middle Eastern or Palestinians but hey who am I to question Chinese security. DAN, tell ur peeps to stop bombing shit or your not seeing the Terracotta Army!

Along the way we also did a Terracotta army figurine factory and a silk one, with a gift shop at the end. Whatever.

After getting back we took a nap for 2 hours and ended up going out with a few people from our trip to the Wild Goose Pagoda and their water show. It was a ton of fun, with hundreds of people crowding around, kids getting soaked etc. Afterwards, we took a crazy crowded bus back to the hostel and started the party. Won’t bother you with the details but we had a fun group and ended up staying up very late. Xi’an is just relentless with its night life…

**note from dom (Fil’s sister): the pictures in this post and the past 4ish posts are NOT in order … sorry

Xi’an, another party

We arrived at the hostel BBQ party in style, which is to say fashionably late.  The food was OK, nothing to write home about (ie JD would of cried).  After which we joined a few people at the bar.  Nothing to blog about as we sat around listening to tourists sing / butcher Oasis songs.  So what does one do when faced with a possibility of a boring night on a vacation? 
 
Bar crawl in Xi’an!
 
In the same way that our random exploration earlier in the day lead to an unforgettable experience, the crawl turned out to be our best night so far.  I’ll summarize all the places we went to, in order to compensate for the lack of pictures (learned my lesson with the military in prev blog).
 
* It all started at the “moonkey” bar where after ordering a drink we met the Asian Michel Jakson (also a bartender) and his friends.
* Next, we went to a disco club in front of which we almost witnessed a fight, inside an arm wrestling match.
* Next, my personal favorite, the what we coined as the “happy happy wave ur hands” bar.  With live singers moving between small stages in the crowd.  Fun!
* Next, the conga line bar where we danced some crazy stuff.  There is this dance floor tradition where all the women scream “oy oy oy” followed by the men with “ay ay ay.”  This is also where Kos and I had an interesting encounter with a jealous drunk old guy, where he got a little pushy.  Apparently he didn’t appreciate all the attention we were getting:)  Anyway he got kicked out we danced.  At one point everyone on the dance floor was trying on Kosios cowboy hat and dancing “american.”
* Next, we ended up at yet another disco where we met a DJ from california who introduced us to his friends.  And as an interesting aside, I did notice two women making out at the bar, interesting not in a teenage cool way but in the hmmm I don’t know how Chinese society deals with that stuff.
 
So much for a boring night!