One More Stop Until the Beach!

I'm typing this from Xi'An, waiting in my hostel to catch my train to Beijing tonight, the last stop before heading to the amazing beaches of the Philippine Islands! Not even I have any idea of how stoked I am about that, but I have the feeling it's somewhere around the majorly stoked level. I had a funny discovery today: entering a monthly photography contest on Flickr I had a funny feeling I was missing some pictures, so upon looking through my computer I found a whole bunch from Kathmandu that were sitting there, ready to upload. I guess I must have forgot about them, so if my photostream looks like I jumped back in time eight months, you know why. Eight months, Jesus that sounds crazy when I say it.

Yesterday I arrived in Xi'An on an overnight train from Nanjing. The train ride wasn't too bad. I find I can't sleep too well if I know I have an early morning arrival; some paranoid function in my mind keeps me waking up and checking the time so I don't miss my stop, even though the conductor wakes you up before the station. I'm going to do my best to sleep well on the train tonight, and I'd better since I had to fork out big money for a soft sleeper car (the nicest one you can get) since there was nothing else available. I also had to reflect on the way train travel is in China. For the locals (and a little for me) it's a very social affair. You're stuck in a berth with five other people for twelve hours plus, so it's only natural that you'll socialize with them. I wonder how many people there actually stay in contact with people they meet on the trains. It occurred to me that we really don't have anything like that in Canada. You might socialize with people on flights, but they aren't that long and it's too expensive to do often. I guess some people use the Greyhound, but the times I've been on it it hasn't seemed too social.

Anyways, on to Xi'An. I ended up grouping up with a pair of German girls (Steph and Daniella) who were headed to the Terracotta Warriors. One of them spoke Mandarin and was incredibly helpful in saving me nearly a hundred Yuan for not having to do the organized tour. The Warriors themselves were ok. I found they were a lot like the Taj Mahal, they look cool, but they're just there. There's no exciting cultural interaction with them. It was a little bit of a ripoff, too. You go there expecting to see thousands of them, which the hype leads you to believe are there. They are there, except over half of them haven't been excavated yet! Or maybe they're not there, who knows. You just have to take people's word for it here, because there's no other way of knowing. The best part of the day was walking along the Xi'An city wall with Steph, beers in hand. It was great to finally hang with somebody who knows a thing or two about photography, and we were able to get some great pictures of each other (like me above), something I've been lacking lately. I would have like to stay another day or two in Xi'An. The hostel here is very social and the city seems like a chill place, but unfortunately I'm running out of time and have a lot of things to see and do in Beijing before I fly out on the 9th.