Traveling

Hi.
OK, just to make something clear, I am not backpacking. Not yet anyways. For now travel involves my (fantastically patient and well behaved) sister: 5 years old. I think she has her own frquent flyer number she has traveled so much... :)
We took the over night train to Xi'an Friday nite. We were in soft sleeper- which is like first class- where you are in a closed off (tiny) room with 4 bunks. We even ventured out to find the hard sleeper- which would be a lot less cushy- but it turned out that the whole train was soft sleeper- packed with foreign tours (Remember now I am the foreigner). So we went to sleep early and got in to Xian about 8 after an 11 hour train ride.
So getting out of th bus station was, umm, interesting. People trying to carry your bags, take you on tours, take you anywhere- and they are all looking at you and saying Hello! waving stuff at you. I can not even begin to describe it- you have to push through to get away from them.
There are guys that stand around offering taxis to you so Phil ended up talking to a guy who offered to take us to our hotel for 50Renminbi (about 7$)- when we waited in the taxi Q it ended up costing only 10 Renminbi (and thats rounding up fotr the tip!)
So we stayed in this beautiful hotel right near the DRum tower and the Bell tower, in the middle of the city. Thats a photo of the view- the drum tower- and yes, thats a McDonalds.
Oops- gotta go- more to come- I'm uploading my pics now so you can check them out at the yahoo address if you like- i'll tell you all about the mosque and the terra cotta army later-

posted by jjoollee @ 7:15 PM