two days in chang'an

chang'an... the old name for xi'an. china's capital for thousands of years, including some the most prosperous ones (think zhou,qin,hang, tang dynasties; cosmopolitan times; terminus of the silk road). at its peak, xian was the largest city in the world, with 4 million people. at any given time, a quarter of that population were foreigner traders. i suppose xian's archaeological sights and museums are the best places in the world to experience, first-hand, china's pride in its ancient glory days. even though it poured rain all 72 hours i was in xian, i managed to see some of the sights... i spent monday at the tomb of han jingdi and had another amazing dinner in the muslim quarter. tuesday, i went to the shaanxi museum and big goose pagoda with a new friend from guangdong.

i woke up on monday without a game plan. but my roomates, ricky (adorable australian backpacker of cantonese descent) and sibelle (quirky but endearing stanford student), had signed up for a ride out to the tomb of han jingdi. on a whim, i decided to join them, because i had read that jingdi was the most underrated sight in xian. this turned out to be true. it turned out to be an underground museum where you literally get to look into the pits, and we practically had the place to ourselves! it's really hard to express how rarely that happens in china. so, ricky sibelle and i bopped around in our funny blue booties, oohing and ahhing at the astonishingly expressive little statues of people and animals, pottery, bones, chariots, etc.

in the afternoon, we came back to the hostel and enjoyed our complimentary coffees in the "traveler cafe." although the rain persisted, i went out for dinner because i refused to leave xian without trying the yangrou paomo. first, they give you a giant bowl and a few slices of yummy flatbread. you break the bread into tiny pieces, return the bowlfull to the server, and they add noodles, stewed lamb, cilantro and all kinds of nummy broth. i enjoyed my paomo while chatting with one of the cute hostesses at this tiny muslim restaurant, who was about my age, and her dad, the chef, who suggested we go on a date after i finished my soup.

in the evening, i chilled with chinese friends i had made at the hostel sunday night. one was visiting from guangdong, another from hubei, and two were local university students who liked to chill at the hostel and basement bar just for the heck of it. hanging around with them was great because it totally surrounded me in the laid-back vibe of xian, plus they helped me make a QQ account! i was in desperate need... since facebook is blocked here, everyone uses a chinese version of AIM or MSN, called QQ to keep in touch. now i am virtually reunited with all the friends i made on my trip and had to leave in shanghai! ... but i have to chat in chinese characters. oy.

on tuesday, my guangdong friend "jesse" (we had chosen his english name at the bar on monday night) took me to the world-renowned shaanxi museum. this place was louder than a chinese restaurant, due to the continuing bad weather and the general nature of chinese museums during the summer. nevertheless, it was an amazing and engaging museum, we stayed for about 3 hours! my favorite exhibits were those displaying items that moved back and forth on the silk road (camel sculptures galore) and the most desirable figures of tang dynasty court women (...fat). in all seriousness, the amount of history and artifacts that the museum contains is truly humbling.

in the afternoon we had lunch at a restaurant with typical xian specialties. i was lucky enough to try roasted cow lungs on skewers... mmm... no... sweet of jesse to treat me though. then we went to the big goose pagoda, xian's most famous architectural landmark. both of us were slightly disappointed by the high entrance fee, cheesy surroundings, and restriction of climbing to the top. but we made up for that with an amazing dinner of hei mi zhou (black sesame rice porridge with sugar) and roujiamo (flatbread with seasoned pulled pork inside). in the evening, jesse and i rushed to the train station to catch my overnight to beijing. we pushed through lines together, he snuck into the station with an old train ticket, and we chatted until we finally had to say goodbye when i boarded the train. sigh... so many amazing new friends on this trip!

the train was a warzone, because the conductors had added some extra cars to accommodate everyone. so there was a car 16, and a car 16+1! highly confusing, people running everywhere, screaming and arguing. but when i finally got settled, i was sitting across from an engaged israeli couple and next to a british chemical engineer. they made great company for the ride; we all talked some and laughed a lot about our experiences in china (and other places) so far. come 1 am, we all passed out on jackets scrunched up on our center table. then poof, at 7:30 am we arrived at beijing west train station, said goodbye, and foggily moved on to our next destinations.

for me, that was BLCU! beijing language and culture university, or beijing yu yan daxue 北京语言大学。luckily for me, the train from xian was packed with other students that had to get to haidian district to start school too. i followed the masses and befriended one particular student, mengyuan, for the bus/subway journey north. 7:30 am is obviously rush hour, so we really had to exert ourselves moving from train to train! but we made it to our respective stops, and even exchanged QQ numbers in between :)

i was enchanted from the moment i walked onto the BLCU campus. i can't wait to post pictures soon. i can already feel myself loving it here... even though i miss my shanghai classmates and ESPECIALLY sue :( :( :( anyway i literally screamed with delight when i saw my clean little apartment, luggage delivered safely from shanghai, shower, and washing machine. from 9 am to noon i blissfully unpacked, settled, showered, and did my laundry (i had been wearing my carefully calculated LAST clean shirt on the train). around noon, my classmates began to arrive, and the rest is ancient history!