From the Great Wall to Xi'an

Dinner -- Our 2nd night in Beijing

I just arrived at our hostel in Xi'an (shee-an) and much to my amazement there is WiFi in the room! ...so I can kinda continue my hermit-ness :) Nah, I'm due back out to meet the group in 45 minutes or so.


A lot has happened the last few days. On Sunday, I went to the Panjiayuan Markets, which is a vast sprawling open market, probably a couple football fields big. Merchants come to the stalls and lay down blankets on the weekends to sell their wares -- trinkets, artwork, books, pottery, beads, you name it. I bought some canvas oriental paintings and a few 60's era anti-American, pro-Vietnam propaganda posters. All in all, I spent about ¥300 (yuan) or about $45. Our guide book says they often set the price 10 times higher for Westerners, so you have to bargen down. On the most beutiful and largest original piece I bought (a landscape featuring a Chinese Elm) he started the price off at ¥580 and we ended up at ¥150. But it cost me ¥125 to mail these works back to myself :(

The next day we hit up the Great Wall and hiked 12.8 Kilometers on it. And this is no walk on the treadmill. We were climbing up and down fragmented, steap steps the whole way. My legs were shaking at the end and I slept like a baby that night at the hostel next to the wall.



I will have to finish this entry later as I have to make a few calls and leave soon!