On to Xi'an

Getting to Xi'an was a bit of a challenge. Everything went fairly smoothly until we landed at the airport. We had to take a bus to the city center for an hour and when we got there there was a downpour of rain and we had no idea how to get to the hostel.

We wandered around for a while and eventually found a starbucks where we could use wifi. We were wrong about where we were headed and a guy on the street eventually helped us out. If we couldn't speak mandarin we would be lost!

The hostel is nice and seems to have a lot of personality. There is a bar here and we get free beer each night (but it's cheap anyway - we have been buying 600ml bottles for 4 kuai which is about 70 cents.

Tonight we went for a buffet dinner which to say the least was a rollercoaster ride of emotions. It was 48 kuai each (8$) and had everything from hot pot to salads to live crab and eel. We have pictures and video of the latter. The cleanliness left much to be desired. There was a guy with an unbuttoned shirt. The floors were filthy. A waiter cleaned the table with a squeegee and dirty towel. Most disturbingly - after we picked up some desert cakes a staff member took the cake tongs and dipped them in a bucket of dirty water under the counter. She then wiped it with a dirty rag that probably cleaned the tables and put the tongs back out. We tried the cakes anyway but they weren't that good. If we get sick we know why :)

The best part of this restaurant was the all you can drink beer - 600ml each. Amy has a good pic of this display.

Last night we went for dinner with two of my former colleagues from Beijing. We had what can only be described as a feast with a huge variety of delicious food. They also brought us a box of moon cakes for the spring festival. During the day we went to the summer palace which was also great. I'll post more pics when we use a computer next.

For now here are a few from my phone:

Breakfast on the way to Beijing.

A questionable sign at a nice supermarket.

New flavours of pringles. We had the crab ones. Weird but definitely taste like crab.

A sign for urinal cleanliness. Translates to "one step forward is a big step for our culture".

They fed us on the plane today. Beer was free. It was budweiser which was weird. I translated an article in a Chinese newspaper.