Wushan Lu Night Market

I wanted to get this blog out quick as I had a very interesting night on Wednesday the 21st.

There are eight of us here and we do hang out a lot. I can usually be found with Alex exploring, aka walking, around Hangzhou or Shanghai. We are also know for our market trips and overall love of haggling. The three girls, Liv, Myra, and Anna, are also know to join the team. Somehow I have managed to acquire the nickname Mr. Bear and Alex is known as Koala Man for his deep devotion to Japanese Koala cookies.

On this particular night we made our second trip to the Wushan Lu Night market, Lu means road by the way, but do not get confused here, it is no longer on Wushan Lu. As always we had a blast, bought some gifts for people and had some amazing street food. This was my second experience with street food here, my first being an onion relish stuffed pita type pancake grilled inside an open oven. This time I found what looked like the Chinese version of a gyro. I was not disappointed! It was just darn tasty. I also found a potato pancake type item stuffed with onions, ground meat, and some veggy which an old lady deep fried. This too was absolutely amazing. Together this cost me $1.45, what a deal.

The Real Adventure Begins

We had six people with us so we had to take two cabs. Alex and I gave the first one to the girls and we patiently waited for a second one. So there we are, big Tim and small Alex, twiddling our thumbs with no empty taxi’s in sight. Have no fear, pedicabs are here though! Below is a picture of a manual pedicab, ours was powered by a very small Chinese man on an even small moped. Did I mention I am not a small person? Well I am not. Yet, this certain pedicab really wanted our fare. After arguing for a better price we SQUEEZED into this thing, Alex was a trooper. For about 15 minutes we sped through town, creaking, moaning, leaning, and with the fear of God in me. The cab driver felt the need to explain multiple times that I am a big guy, DUH! All the while weaving in and out of traffic.

After we get to our campus and climb out the driver is a little upset. He checks his cab for damages the big American might have caused then proceeded to scam us on the price, a whole other story. Long story short… Mr. Bear will never EVER ride in a pedicab.

Stay Together Like Sticky Rice

This week our group travelled to the ‘ancient’ city of Xi’an. Here lies the first capital of China and remained so, on and off, for over a thousand years. I use the word ancient with some conditions here. The majority of the city is neither ancient or even old. Construction, run down buildings, and plain ole dirty city streets dominate Xi’an. There are two ancient sites here, the Terra-cotta Army and the Inner City.

All the kings horse and all the kings men are putting these guys back together again

Humpty Dumpty would be jealous! Emperor QinShihuang’s Terra-cotta army was created over 2,200 years ago to ensure his continued reign in the afterlife. Since their discovery in 1974 Qin’s army has been put back together again for the world to see and it was amazing to experience. And when I army i mean an entire army of foot soldiers, archers, crossbowmen, chariots, calvary, acrobats, civil officials, and generals. On the downside I do recommend waiting about 10 years before you visit. Of the three Pits discovered only Pit 1 has any soldiers to see. Pits 2 and 3 are only partially excavated and the few soldiers they did uncover have been removed. Flick’r is full of pictures just for you guys!

Jade & The Inner City

After the Army we moved into town to visit a fade emporium and learned some interesting jade facts. For instance, Jade comes in two colors, green and lavender. Jade is also never free of imperfections. When you hold it up to light real Jade is translucent and shows balls of white or grey. There are also two types of Jade. Green Jade is found in mountains and rivers, while lavender and green are found only in river beds.

The city of Xi’an, like most larger cities, is surrounded by a rather large wall. Running 14 kilometers in circumference the wall is the only complete city wall left in China. It is surrounded by a moat and is impressive in both it’s scale and architecture. Inside the walls the city lives up slightly more to it’s ancient classification. The Muslim Quarter is small but interesting. The pictures show that there is not a single outside influence in architecture here, no minarets or copper roofs. About 30 seconds from the famous Mosque are the infamous street vendors. Haggling was fun but the merchandise is of low quality and you spend all your time guarding your bags from thieves.

Overall the trip was very good. And I hope everyone enjoys the photos!