Day 3, I was finally getting used to the humid air. I thought that the gray haze over the air was pollution but then I realized that I live in Vancouver, been to LA and New York… I know what pollution looks like. It’s brown, not gray. I work across the Burrard inlet and on a clear morning, I can see the nice brown cloud hanging over downtown Vancouver. So… if it’s not pollution and smog, then what is it? I can only guess that it’s humidity… if it was smog, there would be acid rain but I see no signs of acid rain erosion on 30 year old cars…
Anyways, day 3… it rained… a lot… but that wasn’t going to stop us. We went into that museum that we walked by in day 2. It was like a museum of anthropology, mostly old artifacts, human evolution in China, etc… There was even a few of the terracotta warriors. After a few hours in there, the rain stopped. We went back to the pagoda and walked around the grounds. The large water fountain was still going during the day as well. We went into the pagoda to get a view of the city from the top. Funny thing happened after we left the pagoda. There are a lot of these “tour guides” that hang around the tourist spots that always come up to you and ask if you want a tour… anyways, one of these guys came up to me and was being very persistent. I told him that I couldn’t speak speak chinese and I guess he didn’t understand what I said and took it the wrong way. Fisticuffs nearly ensued.
After we ate, we went to walk around the city wall. There’s a huge wall that goes all around the city… well, the original city of Xi’an. It’s quite interesting, all the older buildings are inside the walls and the new ones are outside the walls. It’s an interesting mixture of old and new. Got some pictures of some interesting snacks and Mcdonald’s pies that we don’t have… Banana and taro root. We grabbed dinner afterwards and went back to the hotel. We have an early flight in the morning to Beijing.
