Well today started off kind of a mess. Last night, about seven people from our group went to the hospital because they couldn’t stop throwing up. It would not have been that big of a deal if we were not leaving for Xian today. So, what ended up happening is that we had to leave those seven behind in Beijing with Gabby and Liliana while the rest of us took the bullet train to Xian. All of this was decided at like 5 in the morning because we had to leave for the train station at 6. We didn’t end up leaving at 6 because a few slept through their alarms, but when traveling in such a big group there is always a buffer built in so we still were able to catch our train in plenty of time. My question is why in the world the US does not have these kinds of trains. They are so efficient and so fast. In my mind, it would make so much sense to build one of these railways, so you don’t have to drive anywhere. I guess since I don’t really like driving I am kind of biased, but they are just a great way to travel. One hundred percent recommend. From Beijing to Xian it took about 6 hours even traveling at 300 kilometers per hour.

Xian is absolutely incredible. To me, Beijing was very westernized, and it was a little depressing due to the fact that you could never see blue sky because of all of the pollution. Xian, on the other hand, has character. After we checked into the hotel and relaxed for a little bit, we met our new tour guide, Rocky, who then led us through the Muslim Quarters of Xian. The Muslim Quarters was so different from anything I have ever experienced. It is street after street of a thousand little vendors selling everything from food to souvenirs. Some of the food looked a little off putting, and at one point we walked past a butcher shop that was butchering a pig right on the street. Some guy on a motor cycle also rode past us and on the floor of his bike was a skinned pig. So yeah, it was definitely an experience. I loved every second of it. Usually, I don’t like being immersed in large crowds (the streets were packed with people), but there were just so many things to look at, I did not know where to point my attention.

We walked through these streets for a while before Rocky led us to a dumpling restaurant where we had a dumpling banquet. Dumpling banquets should be a thing in the U.S. We probably tried about eight or nine different types of dumplings. They were all very tasty and having not eaten anything for a majority of the day, I was pretty hungry. I wish, though, that the Chinese had desert after there meals. It does not appear to be a common occurrence.