Experiencing The Real China!

This is right outside the snow resort, China is not a clean place.

    The past few days have been an adventure and a lot fun.  On Tuesday I went up to our little snowboarding bunny hill with Chris and other friends that live in Xi'an and one guy who is considering joining our family here.  His name is Toby, he is from Switzerland, he is a super solid guy. I would be so thrilled if he decided to join us.

   The day at the hill was a very exciting time.  The conditions weren't super good so and others tubed most of the day.  I tried to teach a friend how to snowboard. But when it is super icy and you have human missiles flying at you at break neck speeds it is not a prime day to teach a beginner, haha. So when that failed I defaulted to tubing.  The tubing is a rush.  We would connect like fifteen tubes, with ourselves and other Chinese people. Then we would cross our fingers hoping no one would die. In the end no one got hurt, thats always a positive.

   The next day i took a bus with Toby and Jenna down town.  I had to meet with a guy about a tutoring opportunity.  So I talked with him for awhile at Duncan Donuts, go figure.  Then we went and jumped on a bus that we didn't know where it went. Explored a little bit. Then went to McDonalds for luch.  We stopped by a really famous tourist attraction and showed Toby around.  Then we walked to the bus stop we needed and hopped on the the 44 and headed home.  It was a fun day. If you can get out it is usually always a good day.

   The next day we got an offer to go to the Xi'an Museum of History.  When you get an offer like that you don't pass it up.  Winnie, our tour guide and friend, showed us around the museum sharing all the unique information she knew about China and Xi'an.  It took probably two hours to get through the museum.  After that she insisted that we eat a famous style of local food. It's called Hot Pot, and i beat Matt, who has been here for two plus years, to it. I was open to try it, but i wasn't expecting to much, as far as taste goes.  I walked into the restaurant and there was a bunch of square tables with a square pot in the middle of the tables that was being heated by a gas stove below it.  They sit you down and give you, well the Chinese speaking people of the group, the menu.  Then you choose a variation of greens and meet and vegetables that you want.  They bring them out to you uncooked and you throw them into the boiling chicken broth, either the spicy side or the not spicy side, when you want.  They got all kinds of stuff. Most of which i was not inclined to try.  I did enjoy the lamb, but other than that it was a stretching time for food. For me at least.  I did try Tofu, so everyone should be proud. And i might of had dog, not for sure. But good possibility.

    When i got home i was still pretty hungry, so i ate something else that would fill me up.  Later that night we headed over to the Dienta, famous tourist attraction.  We were going expecting to see hundreds of lanterns let off into the sky.  We soon learned that it wasn't going to happen, the Chinese stopped this who knows how long ago because of fires.  So instead we watched the biggest water show in Asia.  Pretty amazing.  We were with some friends, so we decided to play Ninja.  If you don't know what this is i am sorry. It's a really simple game that requires quickness, crazy anticipation, and a unconscious self awareness.  So we played this game in the middle of about 5o thousand Chinese. We didn't get as big of crowd as i had hoped, but it was a lot of fun. You would have had to been there.  We also played a game where you walk at a couple and try to get them to let go of each others hands.  Heather thought she would show us how it was done.  So she basically would lower her shoulder and run through people. The other three of us would start laughing histarically, and all of us would look like fools. Heather never really mastered the art of it, haha.

This is also very close the the ski place. 

This was at Hot Pot, this guy would stretch this noodle out by swinging it around  with great skill and precision. So sweet.

    Then we soon realized that there was no way that we would catch a bus with 500 Chinese waiting at every stop within a mile. A taxi was also out of the question, there was just to many people there.  So we started walking all 10 of us, including Rick and Sheryl's foster baby Mathew.   We would run into people setting off  fireworks on street corners, and they were so loud. You would have the random dud that might take your head off, gota watch those ones.  Heather finally stole a cab from two other Chinese men, she pulled the hungry, cold, tired baby card.  Props to Heather, she saved Mathew.  So the rest of us kept walking another half mile, till we decided to jump into a bump bump cart.  Imagine the sketchiest little three wheeler. Then put a large box on the back of it. Throw in some loose screws and bolts and a crazy driver. And you got a bump bump cart.  But we made it home safely, close call.  That concludes about everything i have done in the last week. Thanks for reading.