Day 1: Arrival
After 25 hours of travel (and only 30 minutes of sleep on the plane), Shealee’s family greeted us at the airport at 7:30pm in China and we hit the ground running! They drove us to dinner at a local 5 story mall where they ordered us our first of many Chinese feasts! Dinner consisted of local Shaanxi food (Shaanxi is Xi’an’s province. Similar to a state): Pork Dumplings, Spicy Noodles, Rice Noodles, Sticky Rice Dessert, and delicious pastries with a sweet gooey middle pronounced yo-gow. This is also when we discovered we would need to bring our own water and napkins to dinner! (Most restaurants do not have drinks, especially water.) Her dad came to the rescue with some juice to help get the spicy food down our dehydrated travel-exhausted selves. We showered up and finally hit the bed around 10:30pm.
Day 2: Roadtripping China
We woke up at 6am and hopped in the car for an 8 hour road trip with the family to visit a couple of famous tourist attractions. The countryside shifted from city views with the most frightening traffic to villages and “dirt hills” as we were told. These looked like mountains to this Texas girl, but I was reassured that they were in fact mostly dirt and not large enough to be mountains. Our first stop was a couple of hours in at China’s First Emperor’s Temple and Tomb. This was a serene place with many people coming to worship and light incense for their Emperor and ancestors. This was a great place to stretch our legs with the insane amount of steps up to the Temple and about triple that amount up the mountain to the Tomb.
Next stop, lunch. We drove into the local town and stopped at the most authentic restaurant. The waitress led us back through a courtyard where we were seated within a single room dirt adobe to dine. Shealee ordered us a feast of a meal once again. (She has been our wonderful translator making sure we don’t eat anything too crazy… without knowing it at least!) My favorite part of the meal was the warm sweet soup that tasted like cider with a thick flour texture.
Back on the road again, we reach the Yellow River’s Hukou Waterfall a couple hours down the road. This was an interesting sight! The river was muddy at this site because as I mentioned earlier we are in an area known for it’s dirt mountains. However, people still come from all over to view this powerful waterfall and see the Yellow River that outlines the Shaanxi district.
Day 3: Hua Shan Mountain
Hands down the most incredible thing I have ever seen or done! This day was long and so full of adventure. It all started with an early high speed train ride to the town of Hua Shan. After a taxi to the entrance, a bus up the mountain, hundreds of stairs to the cable cars, and 20 minutes in the cable car we finally reached where our hiking would begin. We spent the next 5 hours scaling 4 summits of this mountain. The views were breathtaking, the crisp weather was life-giving, and the stairs… oh the millions of stairs. It was so worth it though!
The adrenaline was pumping as we decided to partake in the Plank Road in the Sky at the South Summit. We clipped our repelling clips on to the cable and began descending a tiny crevice on the side of the mountain. This led us to a horizontal pathway made of wooden planks that had been attached to the mountain’s side and man-made foot holes that had been carved into the mountain.
Millions of stairs later we had finished our hike and it was time to make our trek home between the trains, planes, and automobiles. We arrived home completely beat from the day, but mustered up enough energy for a short walk to grab some food. The streets below Shealee’s condo are filled with little restaurants that offer outdoor dining on the sidewalk. We found a place a couple blocks away where we were introduced to the spiciest noodles, cow stomach, and had our first Chinese beers (well-deserved I’d say)!
Day 4: Lazy Day & Wild Night
Finally a day of rest! The last two days were especially jam packed because Shealee wanted us to visit some of the bigger tourist attractions before the crowds hit during the approaching Chinese holiday. Apparently during this time all the tollways are free, plus everyone’s off work, so these places get hectic quickly.
Of course our time-confused bodies would naturally wake up at 6am on our day to sleep in, but we soaked up the time to rest and wake up slowly. We walked a block away to a nearby Breakfast Market and had fried bread amongst other fantastic carbs including another “yo-gow” pastry!
We then drove to the local park, which is far more beautiful and fun than any I’ve seen in America. It was huge and filled with trees to block out the surrounding city. Within the trees there was a walking path, a small lake, lots of playgrounds, and picnic tables, but the real showstoppers were the outdoor gyms as I will call them. This is the real reason we came here. We passed these the other day and I needed to experience it for myself.
After our brisk walk and really cool workout we sat down for the most epic seafood lunch prepared by Shealee’s dad! River crabs, bamboo stir fry, shrimp stir fry, squid stir fry, broccoli stir fry, and eggs.
Our afternoon consisted of food coma, napping, blogging, and getting excited to visit the famous Xi’an Food Street Market for dinner! This street is famous for it’s restaurants and food stalls that sell everything from crazy cotton candy creations to fried crab, skewers of meats, famous dumplings and more. This street is also known as Muslim Street as it is run by a local Muslim population and therefore you will find no pork or alcohol in the area.
After stuffing our faces at multiple places along the street we found a nice spot to sit and pregame for a Chinese club! There we sat with Shealee’s parents and a green bag containing a bottle of American vodka, Dixie cups, and some Sprite. (Chinese vodka is apparently not for the faint at heart. It is made with rice and so pungent it cannot be hidden even when mixed.) And despite how cheap most things are in China, clubs are not! Shealee’s parents soon left for home and we headed in to a chandelier dawning club.
It was gorgeous and so LOUD. As we entered we were tapped on the shoulder by the only other Caucasian couple around. They had seen us at Hua Shan mountain the day before and recognized us! This was so strange since Hua Shan was in another city about 2 hours away! The bouncer then told us we could not enter without purchasing a table. It worked out perfectly that we met these 2 extra friends to help buy our way into the place. They were from Israel traveling the area for about a month. Super fun couple and nice to run into someone who also spoke English! Side note: Probably the most surprising aspect of the club were the pristine bathrooms complete with social lounge. Quite the opposite of an American club.
Day 5: Terracotta Warriors
This is the day of Shealee’s dad sacrificing his joy for his daughter and her friends. What an angel. First, we awoke to all of our favorite foods from the Breakfast Market we had visited the day before. Shealee had told him and he got up early to basically buy us all the fried carbs available. Second, he drove us 2 hours in heavy holiday traffic to visit the Terracotta Army exhibit. Having seen the exhibit many times and wanting to prevent parking miles away and having us walk, he dropped us off nearby the entrance and went to navigate the traffic infested streets for the next few hours waiting on us.
We found an English speaking tour guide to help us navigate our way through the history of the exhibits. This is what I learned: This army was built by the Qin Emperor. He was the first emperor to unite all of China’s provinces which also entailed changing to a single currency. This man began rule at 13 years of age and began building the Terracotta Army to guard his one day tomb. He passed before finishing, so his son took over the project and finished it with the hired help of 700,000 men. By order of Qin, the son had all 700,000 men killed at the completion of the project so that the army would remain a secret. The Terracotta Warriors were only discovered about 40 or so years ago by a farmer digging a well. Today they are still excavating multiple nearby sites that will be open in the future.
Later that night we hopped back in the car with the whole family to meet some relatives of Shealee’s for dinner. We went to her favorite noodle place that she has eaten at ever since childhood. It was delicious! We met her mother’s sister and her husband and son. They spoke English very well. It was nice to meet them since we will actually be staying in their home in Beijing in a couple days. With the holiday they decided to come to Xi’an to visit family, so we will have their home in Beijing all to ourselves!
After dinner, we drove to another tourist hotspot loaded with traffic, Asia’s largest fountain. Her dad dropped us off to find a viewing spot while he went to attempt parking. The show was colorful and the fountains were huge! We decided to grab some froyo before heading back. All the while, Shealee’s dad is circling the area in traffic waiting to pick us up since parking was unavailable. Seriously, he’s an angel.
Day 6: Hot Pot Dinner
Our last day in Xi’an was the laziest of days. Abby and I decided to explore locally on our own while Shealee took an afternoon nap. And by locally explore I mean we ended up walking to a 5-story mall a couple blocks away and buying Starbucks. #soadventurous The mall actually ended up to be quite fun and challenging still. The top two floors were restaurants. The next two were clothing stores and tons of fun kid activities! They had a massive playground with small kiddie rides and sandboxes at one end. On the other end of the floor we found a roller blading area and an above ground Swimming Pool (with slide!) for babies. Abby and I found the baby clothes section to shop for our soon-to-arrive niece and nephew. We were in search of the crotchless pants that all babies wear here. No luck. I’m sure our siblings will be disappointed.
The bottom floor was our favorite! It is here that we epically failed at trying to order 2 glasses of wine. And it is also here that we successfully then navigated a Chinese supermarket and purchased the cheapest bottle of Chinese wine available. Let me rewind: Lots of pointing to the wine glasses and wine bottles. Lots of mimicking pouring the wine into the glass and even more of us knocking back a fake glass of air. Result: They brought over the glass, and said no as if we wanted to purchase the glass? Then we conveyed that the wine needed to go into it. They brought a bottle over as well. Somewhere along the lines of us chugging the fake glass of air we had lost them. So close, yet so far. Everyone in the mall was staring at us at this point and we walked away chuckling and confused.
Later that day the whole family drove back to the fountain area before dusk to visit the nearby iconic Xi’an building known as the birthplace of Buddhism in China. This is where the monk, Tang Seng, first brought the religious readings and placed them in this building. After a few trying pictures I decided that I wanted to invest in a true Chinese selfie stick. These were being sold every 10 feet from single vendors. Shealee sent her mom to haggle for one while we watched from a distance. 15 yuan (less than $3) for the coolest invention ever. This thing folds so small that it fits in my crossbody purse, it has a button so you can take a photo with ease instead of using a timer, and it’s pink. We had a blast with it!
The last supper! We ate a very famous Hot Pot dinner spot. They are known for their service and are open 24 hours. The wait was 1.5 hours! We knew it’d be worth the wait, so we went to walk around a bit more. Turns out they had a really neat way to pass the wait time too. We sat down and were given these confetti strips and Shealee explained how to fold them into decorative confetti stars. These little stars were fun and a bit challenging at first. The best part? They count as money back on your meal! Our 8 stars saved us $1 hahaha!
The dining was clean and we were brought warm towels to clean our hands. Two boiling broths were set into our table and we were handed an iPad to order different meats and vegetables to boil. My favorite was the lamb. The spread included: pork slices, beef and eggs, lamb rolls, shrimp, crab, tofu, noodles, fried bread, greens, mushrooms, winter melon, and drum roll please *pig brains and duck intestines*
No, I did not partake. However, the brave soul named Abby tried the brain!
Day 7: Goodbye Xi’an
Farewell to Shealee’s family and hometown! Shealee, Abby and I loaded the high speed train from Beijing. (Typically a 10 hour drive, this train would get us there in about 5 hours.) What an incredible experience it was to live like a local and tour like a tourist all in one trip thanks to my generous friend and her more than accommodating parents. It was really neat to learn so much about Shealee’s childhood and culture. I will never be able to repay this family for the opportunity they gave us. From coordinating our daily plans, to driving us every where, ordering for us, and even helping us pay… we had it easy! Thanks a million Xu Family for this authentic experience!
Fun Facts:
Weather was perfection. Felt like Fall.
Chinese yogurt is way better than American. It is drinkable and the perfect amount of sweetness.
Squat toilets are scary and 98% of the time have no toilet paper or soap.
Tollways are unavoidable and expensive
Traffic lights count down to cars as well as pedestrians so you know how long you have to get through a light
Traffic cameras are found on streets (not just at red lights) and you can get mailed a ticket for speeding or not wearing a seatbelt
Do not drive. You will die unless you have been raised here. Watching their traffic flow from the backseat will give you a few heart attacks, so I don’t recommend it from the driver’s seat.
My Awful Guide to Speaking Chinese:
Knee-How: Hello
Sheh-Sheh: Thank you
Boo: No
Ham-Bah-Bah: American hamburger
Whoa-Eye-Knee, Sawn-Ping-Joe: I Love You, Give 3 Beers
And there you have it, all you need to know!
Wander On,
Sammi Kaye
This is fantastic! Thanks for sharing your journey. Sending so much LOVE!