After a day like the day before, you'd think we would have slept until noon. Well if by noon you mean 7AM, you'd be right. The hotel has nice blackout drapes in the room but our circadian rhythm is still set to US time so we quit fighting trying to sleep and got up. The hotel includes breakfast so we went down and enjoyed the buffet. They have a nice mix of Chinese and western food. The fried noodles and steamed veggies are good and the potatoes and veggies were nicely done as well. I tried a noodle bowl where you have a whole lot of condiments to mix in like onions, cilantro, soy sauce, sesame seeds and more. Think of it like a baked potato bar back home, only noodles and stuff. My concoction was not good at all as the mix I thought was supposed to be some spicy stuff ended up being….not even sure honestly. Just not a pleasant combination. We'll try again a different day and maybe I'll pay closer attention to what the locals are mixing up.
After a good meal, we went back to the room and planned out the next part of the day. Originally we were going to hang out in the room all day but that seems like such a waste. It's not like you visit the end of the Silk Road every day so we got ready to head out. Our hotel is about 1.5 miles from the old city wall so we decided to walk to it. Walking on the sidewalk in China is very much an active participation sport. Between the scooters, cars on the sidewalk (yup - cars), bicycles and the throng of people it's not a leisurely stroll. It was in the upper 80s F when we left the hotel and made our way to the wall. We walked through it to the inside and had a choice to make - left or right. Neither looked like they offered an access to the top of the wall so we went right. It was nice walk along the wall and the traditional houses. Some new complexes were being built and I think Julie is interested in checking on the prices. They looked very nice with a mix of traditional architecture and modern amenities.
After 2 miles of walking we finally found the way to the top and enjoyed walking along the ramparts. The smog wasn't too bad today so we could see further than we could the first time we were here. It's an amazing difference between the noise level at street level and the top of the wall. The wall itself is is about 40 feet tall but it makes a world of difference. People were walking, biking and jogging around the top. The entire wall is 8.7 miles which is impressive when you consider it was built in the 1300s. It was blazing hot on top of the wall and we came across a nice convenience store bought some Cokes and water and decided to head down to the street level.
We walked towards the center of the city where the Drum Tower sits. The city is a bustling, busy place with different smells that hit you every few feet. Some were very pleasant and some less so. Not really that different from walking in NYC or other major cities if you think about it, other than the obvious differences. We reached the drum tower and decided to head back to the hotel which was about 3 miles away. We walked along Main Street (just like back home!) to the eastern side of the wall and turned to get back on the road we needed, Changle. It was sort of surprising to us how many people would stare at us considering Xi'an is a pretty popular tourist destination. Guess they still are not used to seeing Westerners wandering around the streets and maybe they expect us to be in big tour groups. No matter why, we had a good time and enjoyed walking after a long day of flying.
I mentioned it was hot and we had also been advised by our adoption guide for Xi'an to not drink the tap water. We knew we needed to get some bottled water on the way back and found a store in an underpass to get a case. The cashier must not sell a lot of cases of water as she was surprised that we wanted the whole box of 24. After some calculations it was less than $10 US so a heck of a deal. We made it back to the hotel and all told we walked 8.7 miles - not too bad in this heat!
We desperately needed showers after a nice 4 hour-ish walk around the city in the heat of the day and though we knew we shouldn't we took naps. Jet lag is such a bear and I wanted to fight it but we were out around 5PM and woke just before 7. Sadly and as predicted we really didn't feel a whole let better but at some point, sleep is sleep. Nether of us felt like going back out so we ordered room service for dinner. This ended up being a bit of a challenge as the staff didn't speak English and I don't speak Mandarin. I heard her using her phone to translate what she said to English. Apparently most people order steak or salad as that is what she asked if we wanted. After going back and forth a few times, she asked for us to wait and she would come up to the room. She did and a few minutes later and we pointed to what we wanted (Hawaiian Pizza and fries - are we American or what?!) and she wrote it down. Imagine my surprise when she showed up with pizza and fries, but it was veggie pizza. No big deal as I was happy we ended up with pizza and not something else. It wasn't too bad and filled me up. We were watching HBO which is one of two English channels we get. The other is CNN and I don't need non-stop politics while we are over here. It wasn't long and we both were back asleep dreaming of tomorrow - Gotcha Day - the day we will get our newest addition to the family.
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