History: In Xian people focused a lot on the Tang dynasty because a lot of things really prospered here at the old capital. They also focused on the Qing Dynasty like Beijing because they left a lot of things there, like the terra cotta warriors and the great wall. It was also a high point in Chinese history.
Culture: there are some language differences, but there can only be one China, and in turn they are one people, one country, and can be grouped the same. Some examples of this are their everyday lives as an average farmer or city dweller. Their differences arise because they are from different parts of china, just like the south is different than the north in the United States.
Food: In Beijing the food tended to be sweeter than in Xian, where the food was spicy. Also in Beijing we ate a lot of duck, Xian had a lot of noodles and dumplings. They also tended to had spicy food, which is what they are known for. Both places had a lot of fresh fruit, I liked that. At every meal for “dessert” we had watermelon because in China they don’t really have dessert. Both cities did have some questionable food, some of which I wish that I didn’t eat. But the majority of the food that I didn’t know, or even seen before was delicious. If I had to pick the place with the better food, I’d have to go with Xian because don’t like sweet foods as much as I like spicy foods.
We started our day at 7:00a.m. With breakfast, but that was too early after the night that we had before, most of the time I was ridiculously tired. First, we went to the Banpo Ruins museum. I learned that they had a matriarchal system which means the women had the power, not the men. It was really cool to see the ruins of the old grave sites, and houses, which was more foundations because everything looked pretty much destroyed, hence the word ruins. Also there were some skeletons at the grave site. The sad thing was that there was also some jars. I learned that in the jar would be a baby because if a baby dies they go in a jar instead of a casket, and get placed by the house. Next, we went to the hot springs palace. It was free to touch the water with your hand, so we did. I thought that the emperor must have loved it there because the water was the perfect temperature. We went to this one museum type thing in the middle of the hot springs. It had four floors and a balcony. Everything was honestly beautiful. Then we went up in these cable cars, which were a waste of time and money. After all of that we went to lunch. The lunch was just ok, and Scott got sick…twice. Then, we went to the terra cotta warriors. There was this one video that was really bad, Ms. Greenswag and Brandon said that it had to be from around the 80s. They had a circular all around screen, like the one in Epcot. I don’t really know who stole whom. After the movie we went off the see the warriors. Some of them were destroyed because when people get sick of dynasties they get a big uprising cause some chaos, and then select a new dynasty, well when they went off on their rampage the broke a lot of the terra cotta warriors. Some of them they tried to piece back together. Some were so smashed up that they couldn’t. They had a couple different rooms, and each room was a completely different experience from the other two. The last room was really hot though. WE went back to the hotel for a little bit. Jacob took me, and then Brandon caught up to buy Scott some crackers and water because that was all he was allowed to eat, for when we woke him up to move him to his own room. Then at 6:00p.m, Mr. Ewen took us out for dinner. It was our choice to go out for noodles, stay in the hotel, or go to a restaurant they found the day before. I chose the restaurant. My table had a hot pot. It was kind of like fondue, but there was a spicy side that would keep getting spicy the more you cooked it. Then, all of the students at my table, except Alexa, went to the Wild Goose Pagoda with Mr. Shagirn, Ms. T, and David. To see the fountain show, we thought that we were just going to see the Pagoda at night, but there was a show. Natalie and I took pictures in the fountain after we saw some random mad do it. Then, Mr. Shagrin said, “Let’s go to the middle”. So, we ran through the fountain, and stood on this one flower in the middle. Except Natalie who ran around the fountain crazily. David and Megan stayed back, so they were dry, and by the end didn’t smell like puke. But it was worth it because there was a great view of the Pagoda, and Mr. Shagrin yelled, “This is why we travel”. He was right. We don’t just travel for culture, or to learn, but we travel to be ourselves in another country, doing something crazy that could never happen at home. Finally after running around for a while we went back. We split up. The teachers and David went one way, and the student went another. We were walking closed to the Pagoda when these students came up to us, and asked if we could take some pictures with them. We ended meeting this whole big group. We said Ni Hao, and they said Hello. Then we took pictures with them. After that we got close to this really big fountain, and we got some random lady who spoke NO ENGLISH to take pictures of us. It was really hard to explain how the camera worked, because the camera took two flashed and you had to hold the button down for a long time. After that it was almost impossible to find a cab. One stopped in the middle of the road and got open and stuff, but it was pretty shady and definitely illegal. Mr. Shagrin said that he looked like he was ready to take us down to a dark alley and beat us up, which was pretty believable. Finally, we found another cab. This one was questionable, but we took it anyway. Don’t judge us; we needed to get back to the hotel because it was already past room check. We all smelled like barf from the fountain water, that’s why as soon as I got to the hotel I took a shower, but it didn’t matter because we were singing “build me a buttercup” and the “Oscar Meyer Weiner” song. I think Ms. T had a problem because she looked like she was ready to spew all over the van, but she didn’t. We played human frogger quite a bit tonight. Once to get to the pagoda (almost got ran over by a motorcycle), another time while we were trying to get a cab, and a bus almost hit us (it skinned Mr. Shagrin’s arm) and another time just to get to our hotel. As soon as I got to my room I took a shower and rinsed my clothes because I smelled so bad. Tomorrow we leave for Shanghai.
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