We spent the morning with our "angel" Angelina from CA. She's 23, hasn't traveled much except with her family to Japan when her sister graduated from high school recently. She studied biology and I think is deciding what to do next. In the meantime she took off and came to stay with a family in Beijing on her own taking Chinese classes. Really gutsy, I thought! She speaks pretty good Mandarin, it seems, and was very helpful to us on the bus (she prevented us from getting on bus 601 going the WRONG way and guiding the taxi driver back to our hostel). She had biked with us on the wall the day before and then asked if she could accompany us to the museum and the pagoda. She has been here since May and this is her only side trip. We encouraged her to contact the China Culture Club when she goes back today on the train to Beijing. She will go home mid-December. Very lovely young woman!
We are off to Guilin today. As we walked around yesterday afternoon looking for an ATM to get cash and also an Internet cafe or some place to get our pictures and movies burned to a DVD, Joyce had a great find! While I waited at the ATM, she found this little hole in the wall with no English spoken but she saw a writing up on the wall with CD and DVD. When I inquired, they took me upstairs and a helpful Chinese man downloaded my pictures off the camera stick,including the movies (think I got great shots of the dancing fountains Pat mentioned below). I then had him burn 4 copies so we each go away from here with all my pictures up to now. Then I came back and rested before the show and Pat and Marilynn went back to the place. BTW, when I went with the man downstairs to pay, I only had 70 Y instead of the 80Y. He said to the girl "She was an English teacher here, make it only 70Y" They are SOOO nice and helpful here! It's so contradictory to their seeming rudeness and shoving and cutting in front when going somewhere, driving, etc.
The hostel arranged for our driver to take us to the Tang Dynasty variety show - 10 musical performances - dancing and instruments - from the period of high culture here in Xi'an around 600-700 AD. We had Tsingtao beer (3 of us) and popcorn for dinner!!! I remember this from 2004 when Virginia, Gail and I were here for the weekend and went to this show. There were tables all around with a lot of Westerners (big tour buses outside). The show was a bit over an hour - we dressed up in our "best" outfits and had a great time! Our driver was there to bring us back at the end and Pat had one more close-your-eyes ride through traffic through Xi'an. She did say even though she usually doesn't care for cities she's like all of the ones we've visited. We will be more in the countryside in Guilin and Yangshuo before returning to Shanghai.
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