Another visit to Xian

Seeing as I did not have to prepare for my exams, I had decided to reuse my preparation material; I had a weekend free and arranged to spend it in Xian with Debra. I made reservations, purchased train tickets and off I went.

Having gone to sleep, on the train, early I awoke at 05:00 ready for the day. My train arrived in Xian at 05:30 and, as has become my habit, the first thing I did was to purchase a return ticket. The Chinese tend to wait until they are ready to go before purchasing a ticket. I like to get one as soon as possible in order to reduce the amount of time I spend in the train station and to be sure I will get the ticket I want.

I got to the hostel and stowed my pack but Debra was still in bed so I went and played on my computer for a while. When she got up and we went walking through the Moslem quarter looking for breakfast. We actually found something that was a lot like a doughnut bar. We snacked a bit and went to a Mosque but it was not open that early so we continued on the Giant shop. I wanted to look at the model I had purchased and check the price. I had purchased mine in Xinyang for just under 2000RMB and in Xian I discovered that they were asking over 2600RMB, I had suspected that the Giant shop in Xian was over priced. Now I have verification.

We then returned to the Hostel and contacted one of my students, who was also in Xian but not staying with us, to go shopping with us, as we had previously arranged. There was some confusion as to where we would meet but we finally did meet up in front of the Xian China Post building.

We went to some shops that were nearby, including the large mall that is next to the Bell tower. There were three problems with those shops. First, they didn't have anything that Debra liked (she was looking for some skirts), second, they did not fit her and third, I consider those mall shops to be over priced. I finally convinced my student and her friend that we were not going to find what we were looking for at these shops and that we needed to try the Bazaars.

They finally understood and took us to the places that typical Chinese shop for clothing. Truth be told, there was a much greater selection than in the tourist area, but the prices were also a lot lower.

We finally got one skirt for her ant the first shopping building we went to. As you have seen in the past, these are large multi-story buildings (often seven to ten floors) filled with small ten by ten or twenty meter shops and all of the shops are independent of each other. One thing that never ceases to amaze us is that most of the shops close up for lunch and the staff stretch out on the floor for their siesta. We almost got a second skirt, at the second building, but the shop keeper saw westerners and raised the price beyond what we felt was reasonable. Then Debra was getting tired (I had not realized that we had been out on the shopping trip for over five hours until we returned to the hostel) so we started heading back.

(To get to these shopping centers one would go north [toward the train station] from the Bell Tower on "The North Street" until arriving at the last major intersection before passing under the wall, "Xi Wu Lu" on this street you will turn right, or east. You will know that you are on the right street as you pass under the circular pedestrian walkway as you cross the next major street heading to the train station in the north. Continue East on this same road. You will leave the walls and in about three kilometers you will reach the shopping buildings.)

Later, after naps, Debra and I had lunch, where we were pleasantly surprised that the Pizza at the Bell Tower was really pretty good, better than the only other Pizza place available to us, Pizza Hut, and also cost a lot less. We then went looking at iPods and pricing them and visited some other computer stores. This is the first time I have actually seen Red Flag Linux (the Chinese version of Linux) on a computer in China. There is a popular myth in the west that computers are cheap in China. We have not found this to be true. After currency conversion they seem to cost the same, and often more, for similar units. We checked the price online and determined that the iPods here cost slightly more than they do in the US and decided to think about it.

That evening we went out to watch the street carnival, which is common the Xian. However, the weather put them off and there was not as much happening. So, mostly we sat around.

Wandering at night in Xian

The next day Debra and I went and she did get her iPod. We checked several dealers and determined that the authorized Apple Dealer was the cheapest. It did sort of surprise them that she had a Chinese bank card; but the transaction went smoothly.

Debra getting a new toy

They included a number of extras but the one thing that they did not include, because they were out of them, was a screen protector. Debra does not want her iPod to end up looking like mine (in my defense, mine is about three years old and she has used it more than I have). We then went to another shop, which had the screen protectors, and tried to purchase one. For whatever reason, this caused them an incredible amount of consternation. We just wanted the screen protector, nothing else. It was in the locked case so I was not able to pick it up and wave it in their faces; instead I was reduced to pointing and saying "that" in Chinese. I finally gave up and phoned another Student, Gao Jing and had her talk to them (I knew she was awake because she has sent me a "Fathers day" note on my phone). It just seemed that the transaction was much more complicated than it needed to have been.

We then walked over to the artists' corner of the city and I purchased some drawings to put up in my flat. This particular shop had about the lowest prices I have seen on the Chinese scroll prints. They add a bit of color to the walls (well, the map adds color to the walls, but it looks a bit overly functional).

We then went back to the book store where some Chinese students were asking what they should read to work on their English over the summer and I would up back in "teacher mode." From there Debra retrieved her bag and headed to the train station and I sat in the lounge and waited until about seven in the evening, when it was time for me to go.

This time the VIP lounge was full and because I did not have a soft seat ticket (it is not a straight charge, it is a percentage of seat, so for Debra's trip to Ankang it is only a 20RMB upgrade, for me it is almost a 200 RMB upgrade) I had to wait in the general lobby, the cattle pen. And, as usual, it was filled with rude people who, with hundreds of people standing, had their luggage piled on the few seats and others lounged across several seats napping. The degree of public rudeness in China, from people of all ages, is something that is often shocking.

Upon return I took a cab back and then rode up to class.