More adventures

April 6, 2014

As I type, I am in the food court of a local Xi’an shopping mall，大唐西市.  I was able to order some noodle soup, with eggs.  I know those words :)

This has been my first trip “on my own.”  I say “on my own” because many people have helped me along the way.  First, my host, 杨先生, and his wife took me to the bus station.  I knew where it was, but they wanted to drive me there.  Then, with the help of my Couchsurfing host, 尹辉 here in 西安, I managed to find my way from the bus station to the train station, where I caught my next bus.  The bus drove to this shopping mall, 大唐西市, actually, where my host told me to cross the street.  After crossing the street, we met and he walked me to his apartment.

尹辉 lives on the sixth floor of his apartment building.  His home has three rooms: his bedroom, the common area/kitchen and a second bedroom.  There is also a small bathroom, but he doesn’t count that as one of the rooms.  It is a very simple apartment.  There are cement floors, white walls and limited furniture.  The room I am sleeping in has a small bed and desk, with some boxes in one corner.  There is one window with a curtain, a light with a pull string and a door with a small window above it, for ventilation I think.  We speak mostly in Chinese, but he can speak English, too.  He has hosted many people from around the world, many who do not speak Chinese.

After meeting 尹辉, he took me to meet some other locals who I also met through Couchsurfing, Bonnie Kou and Thomas Tian (I do not know their Chinese names!).  尹辉 chose to return home and Bonnie, Thomas and I went to two parks.  The first one had a small lake with many people in pedal boats; some were shaped like swans.  We caught a bus and traveled to the second park.  This park was full of flowers.  We decided the English name for the flowers was Peony, but I don’t know that independently.  Some of the flowers had bloomed, but many had not yet; this year is cold, so the flowers are slow to bloom.

After we left the park, we went to a local restaurant.  This restaurant is a franchise started by two local brothers, and has foods common to the city.  We ate noodles (面), soup (汤) and steamed dumplings (包子) with a side of lotus root.  Afterwards, Thomas and Bonnie helped me get to the subway.  I needed to get to the subway to travel to a dance class!  Also through Couchsurfing, I found out about a Bachata and Salsa dance class.  It was very simple and small, but was fun!  I was feeling very home sick and alone (my cell phone wasn’t finding signal so I could text Blake), so dancing helped distract me.  After dancing, I tried taking my battery and SIM card out again and…it worked!  And I was able to text Blake, finally.  It made my day, after feeling so low.

To return home, as it was not after 9 o’clock at night, I planned to catch the bus…but the bus had stopped running at 8:30 PM.  So, I tried to ask if there was another bus, and found out that there was none.  After asking a hotel guard what I should do, I hailed a petty cab and had a long bumpy ride home.  I paid about $8, which was probably a bit expensive, but I didn’t care.  I was home, texting Blake and very happy.  Now, 12 hours later, I’m eating a late breakfast/early dinner, and getting ready to meet some new people and see some more of the city!