Or stalking the tourist in the wild. Or perhaps it was them stalking us. In either case – tourists and locals are two different speices.
It is not just the Americans – in fact we have seen very few Americans – it is all the tourists. So far we have counted French, Spanish, German, UK, Japanese, Korean and a few Australians sprinkled among the hundreds upon hundreds of Chinese.
You could even talk about being stalked – certainly that is true at the various tourist stops. Overwhelmed by those trying to peddle their goods. Other than that – there is little to no interaction between any one who lives and works in China and the tourists – unless one’s job is in the tourist industry. Those places we go and the people we meet – feels much like going to Russia.
Enough said. I could easily do without several of the tourist groups.
We started the day at the Stone Forest Temple/Museum
Which has over 200 stone tablets from Confucius times to the present, representing a wide variety of calligraphy as the texts were carved over the centuries.
With contributions from modern artists.
Our humour for the day –
Which I supposed you could sit at after making use of the collection of ancient hitching posts.
Besides the tablets – the ancient bell no longer rings.
From there – we went to the top of the Xi’an old city wall.
Looking out over the city – there is continual contrast between the old and the new. Pagodas, neon signs, hand carts and buses.
The high point of the top of the wall was the Chinese version of a tea ceremony.
From there, we were on our way to the airport. The original plan was to go to Chongqing.
Weather that was less than pleasant with a fair amount of turbulence resulted in our flight being diverted to a completely different city. After an hour on the ground, we took off and tried it again. The final view prior to landing? You would never know that there had been a storm.
Stumbling from plane to bus to ship – the whole crew was pretty exhausted.
-Holly
