We awoke to the sun shining a top the rice terraced countryside, had a bite of breakfast cooked again by Sally’s grandmother, and then set out on a 1.5 hour hike around the rice terrace village with Leo. We passed a small primary school filled with little boys in burgundy sweater vests and grey short trousers reciting back whatever their teacher called out to them in unison. Outside the school was a mother with her 18 month old daughter in pajama bottoms with a front to back slit that was currently being used as the child was held aloft in a squat position by the mother as the child peed into the street fountain-like. Livvy's expression was priceless, a mix of shock and horror, "Don't they have diapers in this country Mom?" From that moment on we seemed to notice slit pants and exposed bottoms at every turn. Livvy did worry about the effects of the cold air on their infant skin but was slightly more concerned with the real possibility if being peed on should the wind gust.
More math homework and a good deal of reading at the dining room in the once again power-less hotel under the smiling gaze of grandma cook, and then we were invited to enjoy lunch. Livvy hesitated, “Wait Mom, what about our friends?”. She then set off to locate John and Sara, whom she invited to join us for our last meal at the hotel. Soon the sherpas returned and with our gear loaded on their backs, we hiked down to the waiting van and the long drive to the airport to catch our flight to Xi’An.
On the flight we were again offered a meal of some obscure meat in a curry sauce and steamed rice, which we both declined. We arrived in Xi’an and were met by Nancy, our very hip new guide and our grumpy driver who lost his parking lot ticket and grunted a lot during the ordeal as though someone else were responsible for the mishap.
The smog in Xi’an was absolutely staggering and made the Shanghai air seem pure. After dinner at a special vegetarian restaurant (word had made it to the tour operator that I was not a meat eater), we checked in at the Hyatt where I was treated to my first attempted shake down for an upgraded room. “Roger” at the check-in desk informed me that there were no twin bedded deluxe rooms left although we had reserved one, but that there was a twin bedded Junior Suite available if we were willing to pay the 400 RMB (~$55 USD) supplement. I laughed out loud and told “Roger” that the hotel had made the error but that since they have extra rooms, I’d be happy to take the twin bedded Junior Suite at no extra charge and forget about the mistake. Nancy gave me an approving smile, her client was no sucker. “Roger” looked rather confused and even a bit downtrodden and then turned to consult with his colleague “Eugene” in Mandarin, finally returning to me whereupon he handed me the keys to the Junior Suite with a forced smile and a, “Yes Madame.”
In the morning we enjoyed a huge buffet breakfast and a smoggy drive to the Terracotta Warriors Museum with the impossible to escape smell of burned rubber from the surrounding factories the whole way. As I dabbed my stinging eyes with a tissue, Nancy insisted the air quality has much improved in recent years and that you get used to it after a while. The Terracotta Warriors were amazing and well worth the pollution, although a filter mask might have been a worthwhile purchase. I had packed plenty of disposable toilet seat covers, which were of absolutely no use on this trip for obvious reasons, but the filter masks I had thought unnecessary were still sitting on the shelf at Walgreens in Los Gatos where I had left them, silly me.
We drove to lunch where Nancy got into a mildly heated argument with the waitress over adding broccoli to the beef in oyster sauce at Livvy's request, and after no less than 3 other waitresses and a supervisor intervened Nancy prevailed. Having watched me at the check-in desk last night, Nancy clearly wanted to show that she had some serious negotiating chops herself. We then helped rescue a large fish that had jumped out of an open fish tank onto the restaurant floor in an apparent escape attempt. In hindsight I suppose we didn’t actually rescue the fish at all but rather the opposite as we saw the fish returned to the display tank from which patrons select their dinner. I decided to leave that part out for Livvy’s sake as she celebrated the victory.
The afternoon was spent visiting the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, exploring the ancient City Walls, walking through the Muslim Quarter, and getting a tour of a local home. We then headed to dinner at one of the many famous Dumpling Banquet Restaurants where we were seated with two delightful American couples, Kim & Tim and Claire & Jim from Boston. Jim and Tim were in Xi’an on business, they were lecturing on Mediation at the University of Xi’an in the morning, but Jim had a bad case of laryngitis and Claire seemed to revel in this, playing the part of the doting matron and shushing Jim when he made even the smallest attempt to converse. Claire also took the opportunity to speak almost incessantly throughout the duration of dinner (how she loves Northern California and how delightful to find a mother and young daughter traveling and how she had done the same with her daughter 30 years ago etc. etc.), giving us the impression that Claire may not feel she has enough chance to speak when Jim is well. Jim was quite adept at sweetly rolling his eyes and somehow wordlessly imploring our patience with his beloved Claire, which led me to actually conclude that Claire is most accustomed to hogging the conversation and that Jim might just be playacting in order to minimize the fight for airtime.
The dumplings were rather disappointing though, and so we stopped at a nearby Mc Donald’s to get Livvy an ice cream before returning to the hotel for the night.
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