You so handsome, gimme money now!

WOW!! That’s pretty much the only word I can use to describe my feelings about Xian. It was incredible. I agree with the statement “You haven’t been to China until you have been to Xian.” The weekend started out pretty much uneventfully, we took the slow train to Xian thinking it wouldn’t be too bad since the trip was only 5 hours and the train left at 1 a.m. so we figured we could sleep all the way there, that’s not a mistake I will be making a again! The seats in the train were back to back, they didn’t recline…at all… like, I’m pretty sure they learned forward to force good posture. Needless to say it was a long trip for me! We got there in the morning and it was off to the Museum to get in line for one of the 1000 free tickets they give out each day, we both got a ticket, I was amazed to see such a long line to get into a museum.

Shaanxi History Museum

This place was HUGE!! The museum occupies an area of 65,000 square meters (16 acres). It is a grand complex of buildings imitating the architecture style of the Tang Dynasty (618-907). It covers the history of dynasties in China from the Qin Dynasty which started in 221 BC and ends with the Qing Dynasty which ended in 1911 with 7 dynasties in-between. We took the whole morning there learning about the fascinating history of China I am so glad I took that Chinese Culture class before coming it really helped me to better understand and grasp just how much history China has. They had a small display of the Terracotta Warriors but nothing like the actual pit…don’t worry I’ll get to that J

Muslim Market and Great Mosque

The Muslim market was the most fun place I have ever been shopping, and I hate shopping. They had all kinds of foods to try, with Chinese and Arabic notes mixed together. Before we went we decided to try as many things as we could, my favorite were these Almonds I have no idea how they were made ha! But they were amazing they had no salt on them or evidence of spice but they had the most amazing flavor! My mouth is watering now thinking about ‘em. Besides all the food there was a huge street full of almost everything you could find Target! Only it was full of people almost exclusively with people from all around the world, trying to haggle prices with the Chinese vendors, it was quite a sight to watch the vendors try and guess were people were from and yell out to them “come have look, I give you good deal, look only look” My first approach was to respond in Spanish and say I only spoke Spanish, that plan crashed and burned when they said in response “te doy muy barato, venga venga” caught me off guard! So then I took the approach of speaking Chinglish to get better deals. They funniest experience was with a woman who wanted me to buy a shirt, she started by saying “you want shirt? How much? I give you good deal you so handsome!” What I should have said was nothing, what I did say was “ How Much?” which led to a conversation that went something like this:

Vendor: normal price 300, you handsome so I give you 280, very good price, very quality, very good, you buy?

Me: “Wo bu yao mai” =I don’t want to buy

Vendor: okay better price, how much you pay?

Me: 40

Vendor: haaaaa you kidding me, too low, this good quality, you so crazy, you my brother, give me little more, last price

Me: 45

Vendor: okay I say 280 you say 45, 280-45=235(all typed on her calculator to explain the math) we both happy, come on you buy, I know you want

Me: “Bu yao, bu yao!! Choked by my laughter at her deal

Vendor: okay okay, you student I give you discount, you speak little Chinese I give you discount you my brother how about 85 best price, soo cheap so cheap

At this point I couldn’t stop laughing and started to walk away saying “bu yao, bu yao” at which point she grabs my bag out of my hand puts the shirt in it then puts it behind her back and says:

“Okay you price you price only you so handsome, you my brother gimme money now”

Me: By this time laughing hysterically, say: I don’t want it, I don’t need, I even said in Chinese I didn’t have any money.

Vendor: holding out her hand now says “ hahaha you so funny you make joke, now gimme money my brother”

Me: Okay, I guess I’m buying a shirt.

Vendor: okay you want 2?

Moral of the story, when shopping in China just walk away or act like your deaf and start signing to you friend, that was my plan B.

Terracotta Warriors

There quite honestly aren’t words to describe how it felt to walk into the giant stadium structure about the size of 3 football fields and see this immense Terracotta army still standing in place to protect Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China. The soldiers’s head, arms, legs and torsos were created separately and then assembled. Studies show that eight face moulds were most likely used, and then clay was added to provide individual facial features. Once assembled, intricate features such as facial expressions were added. So just to put that into perspective current estimates are that there are over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which are still buried in the pits to protect the color, they found out when they uncovered the soldiers in a short amount of time of 5 minutes to 5 hours the paint would flake off and fade so a large portion of the soldier are still buried to protect them. It was incredible, definitely check out my pics on FB

Almost Arrested

We made it home safe on the bullet train which was fun to ride; we took a taxi back to our school which turned out to be a disaster. The taxi driver tried to over charge us and he ended up taking us to the wrong spot even, his mistake I found out not ours. So we didn’t want to pay him the 40 rmb he wanted when he wasn’t even leaving us at the right place especially when it should have only cost us 20. So I called our school liaison Kim and told her what was going on, and gave him the phone. After 20 minutes of them arguing he gave the phone back to me Kim told us to get out of the Taxi write down his plate number and not give him any money, and she said she would be there in 15 minutes to pick us up. We got out, he starts yelling at us and tells us he wants money otherwise he was gonna call the cops; we acted like we had no idea what was going on. He calls the cops. So now I’m thinking shoot this really escalated quickly for 40rmb or 7$. The cops come and they start talking to him and thankfully about that time our Liaison showed up with our school security guard and tells the cops and the driver what’s up, whew! It’s nice to have contacts in high places!