Today we visited the terra cotta warriors. Most of them are still being reconstructed and it’ll take about 500 more years for all of them to be done. This is the site I believe we got the most stares. People tried to be slick about that pictures but it was still very obvious. Some people were very shameless and just took the photos. It was crazy, a guy literally aimed his selfie stick towards us. There are two other African American students on this trip and we talked about it and we realized why the stares offends so so much. Because of media, sometimes in the US we are viewed in a negative light so we think it’s the same way here. Actually, people here are just genuinely excited and interested when they see us. For some of them we are the first black people they’ve ever seen and they just want to take a picture of the moment. I’ve concluded that I’m fine with it if they ask for a picture but if they take it without my permission, then I’m not okay with it.

After lunch, we went to bike on the city wall of Xi’an. I was kind of afraid of this since I saw this in the itenary like 2 weeks ago because I don’t know how to ride a bike. I never really learned when I was little and like 5 to 6 years ago my little sister taught me. I only rode the bike for like a week after that and then never again. Our tour guide encouraged me to ride the bike since it was something that I’ve paid for and I’m glad she did that. Little by little I learned and I eventually rode more than 3 miles in 90mins. Might not seem like a huge achievement to some but for me it was a big deal. Also, unfortunately, I didn’t take pictures here. I was too busy focusing on not dying lol.

Dinner was good as usual and after that a bunch of us went rollerblading/skating. I never thought I would try to ride a bike again and since I did, I was on a high to try new things. I thought roller skating wouldn’t be that bad. I was wrong. Although it was fun, it was very bad as in I got hurt so many times. The locals who skated there were really good and very fast. They were all going in different directions and bumped into me a lot. I gave up and decided to leave early with someone else.

Today was an adventurous day and although I got hurt, I do not regret the experience.