Xi'an

Yeah I've been seriously slacking on the blogging front.

This is partly because so much happened that I didn't feel like writing about it every day, but at the same time, every day was kind of the same in Sichuan.

The day would usually start around noon, we'd head up to the Second Uncle's home, maybe tour somewhere in the afternoon, and then every night we would go out to a restaurant for dinner. [We ate out six nights in a row; I feel ridiculously overweight.] Two of the evenings, after dinner, everyone went out for karaoke. Usually I would go home after dinner to be online, and they would come home after midnight sometime.

Some days we went shopping in the afternoon; another day we spent in the mountains (and left right before dinner, of course) with some distant relatives- that day was really fun because we went hiking in the mountains and played in the snow. Another afternoon I went to the temple of the only female empress of China. Our last dinner (last night) was at a Mongolian style outdoor restaurant where we all danced around a campfire and sang karaoke. I started out miserable, but when we left this morning the Second and Third Aunt were crying, and I actually did feel a little sad to be leaving Guangyuan. They made me feel like a part of their family so in the end, I'm glad I came and stuck it out.


Anyway so now I'm in a very nice hotel room in Xi'an (that's why I'm still up at 2 in the morning on the internet). It was a four hour drive here from Guangyuan, and coming from that town in the mountains of Sichuan, Xi'an feels like Shanghai with its malls and city life and whatnot. We ate at a hotpot restaurant and then walked down to the Islamic Street Market which was packed with people and vendors selling food and souveneirs and all sorts of things in between. Tomorrow we're going to see the Terra Cotta Soldiers and I am extremely excited about that, then we're making the two day drive home to Shanghai, arriving home on the 14th.

More adventures will ensue from there; hopefully I get some decent rest in the next week!