By Dan
Tuesday 10th of October 2017
Flying in China on a cheap chinese airline sounds risky. But besides seeing the tape holding bits of the wing together slowly unravel, it really wasn’t that bad… Just kidding. Just wanted to get my parent’s hearts racing.
After staying in a dorm in Guilin we were pretty happy to have our own room. Not that having a dorm isn’t a great way to meet people. Neither of us like having to rely on others and their 3am whisperings, stumblings and showerings. The room was spacious, quirky and only slightly mouldy, but nothing too dangerous. My being here writing this a testament to our survival.
After travelling through southeast Asia, which can be considered in some circles as the sweaty (but beautiful) armpit of the world, Xi’an was the coldest we’d been in what felt like an eternity. We dug up our jackets and beanies and went exploring. Firstly for vegetarian food. Sadly our options were already limited and made even more so with most of the vegetarian restaurants closed for the holidays.
However, we did discover the Muslim Street. That’s actually the name of the street and refers to the area where the muslim population of Xi’an can be found. It was fantastic. In our excitement at the huge variety available to us we bought the biggest piece of pita bread that probably existed on our planets. Unfortunately, it filled us nearly completely and we couldn’t eat anything else.
While wandering the long street we were approached by a local tv channel who were interviewing tourists about Xi’an. The interview was a shambles. Our interviewer was more nervous than we were and struggled to ask us the questions in english. But we all had fun and when finally asked what we liked most about Xi’an I said without missing a beat, “The food is happy and the people are delicious.”
Our budget was bursting at the seams and we were eating noodles for dinner most nights. It became a ritual to go to 7/11 and choose the least meaty looking package, big slabs of or meat or pictures of cute piggies with wings were the main giveaways, then spend 10 minutes or so at home picking the faux meat out of the packs. We discovered we hated the clear noodles, and it was a unbreakable law to get any noodles that weren’t yellow.
We spent our days exploring the city, traversing the thousand year old city wall, visiting the national museum and, of course, eating noodles and (to our shame) McDonalds. Until we received news that my family dog Sully had passed away. He’d been diagnosed with cancer a few months before and it went pretty quickly downhill after that. He was the sweetest, most gentle creature and to not have the chance to see him, which we were hoping we would be able to make it home just in time to do, threw a cloth of sadness over the whole trip. I was distraught and didn’t want to leave the apartment, and really just wanted to go home. I stared at pictures of him all day and wrote him a poem.
Hey, Sully!
I scratch his head.
He licks my elbow.
Monkey arms,
I dance before him.
The gangly gentleman bows.
Sticks his bum
up to the sky.
Tail wagging.
Paws out.
Face split
by that eternal smile.
Balk left. Balk right.
Legs are first to go.
Head is last. Like a cartoon
character on the run.
Round and round.
Large sweeping circles.
Gathers momentum around him.
Dizzy. Snap.
He's off.
Padded feet
thunder on the ground.
Nose pointing nowhere.
Can't stop me now, he says.
I run the other way.
The chase is on.
Grey lightning vs pink blob man.
Close behind me.
Overtakes me.
Collapsing on the grass.
I always tire before him.
He licks my face with worried looks.
Are you okay? he says.
I grab his head.
Hug the bear.
Kiss his fur.
Scratch his ribs.
Who's a good boy?
I am! he barks.
Prancing away like a show horse.
I laugh at him and wait,
For him to turn his back.
Run again.
Hey! Come back!
Fly after me.
Don't touch the ground.
Pass me and keep on going.
Nothing can stop you now.
Goodbye, Sully.
The next day, hoping to distract ourselves, we went to the terracotta warriors. It proved to be a very good distraction as we explored the thousands of artefacts dug up and now preserved for all the world to see. It really was an amazing experience to see these terracotta soldiers, each with their own unique face and expression, pieced back together and staring into eternity. I should let you know that it’s rare to find a perfectly preserved warrior after some 2000 years and you can see the archeological teams in the different pits labelling and placing the thousands of different pieces back together.
On the way out we stopped in at the souvenir store and bought a small little terracotta warrior of our own. It wasn’t expensive and a much better way to spend our money than on some of the other ridiculous things we could have bought in those shops. My favourite being a photoshopped version of yourself AS A REAL LIFE TERRACOTTA WARRIOR! OMG! You don’t realise how close we were to wasting our money on such an amazing souvenir.
The next day we were catching a bullet train to ancient town of Pingyao, and with the main week of the holidays over things would hopefully be cheaper and quieter. In a country of nearly a billion and a half people, there couldn’t be more naive words spoken than the previous ones.
