Xi'an Update 1

Xi'an is a nightmare. Upon arriving at the station and finding out that no one spoke english and no signs are in another language, we took to the street to find a taxi that could take us to where we were staying in Xi'an. We had the address written out for us by our host in Pinyin for us to show to the taxi drivers, but finding a taxi at Xi'an Railway Station proved to be a lot more difficult than expected. We finally managed to find a large hotel, similar to the Hilton for comparison sake, that had english speaking receptionists who were more than happy to call a cab for us. They warned us that it would be pricey however since the address we had given to them was well out of Xi'an and this is why some taxis refused to take us there.

When the taxi arrived, we agreed on a price of about 45 RMB, although most marked taxis have a meter going during the ride to show an accurate price per km/mile. We hopped in, being graciously taken care of by the bell boy who helped us with our bags and the security guard who told the cab driver where to take us. I passed out in the taxi since it seemed like we had had a short mind fuck going on the train from Beijing to Xi'an for 14 hours.

40 minutes later, we arrived in the middle of nowhere in front of an apartment block. We called up our host and waited for her outside the apartments before paying the taxi 35 RMB and leaving him to drive off. We met our host, we genuinely seemed nice, although the gap in translation was heavily apparent upon us first meeting. She told us we would have to unfortunately carry our bags up 6 flights of stairs since there were no elevators in China-more things were made difficult of course. After travelling for 14 hours on a cramped train with tons of shouting Chinese people (the volume is always loud by the way), we were in no way ready for these stairs.

We discovered that our room was a small balcony type area converted into a bedroom with two single beds lined against one another and two chairs representing a sort of shelf/seating area in the corners of the room. It was the cheapest we could get in Xi'an to be fair.

After settling in, we decided to head downstairs for some local cuisine at a restaurant we had passed before entering the apartment block. The servers tried their best to communicate with us and even though I somehow managed to order a mystery beef soup, we ended up with what we wanted; dumplings and beans. These two items we had loved in Beijing however, were far from similar since the further south you go in China, the hotter everything gets.

The beans were shuffled in with about 10 chili peppers, so every bite you had was indistinguishable in taste since your taste buds had inevitably been burnt off in the process of eating the prior bite. I gave up with my dumplings when each one of them tasted like detergent-or some sort of powdered floral soap. Disappointed by the cuisine, we headed home for a good sleep and a quick munch on some peanuts and pistachios.

Xi'an has already started wearing us down....continued update later since we are on our way to the hospital right now....