Elizabeth goes to Xi'an 西安

This was the only solider they found in one piece .  He's called the kneeling archer.

This carriage is half life size. 
It protects the carriage behind it which is supposed to be for the Emperor's soul to be carried in.

The over-priced gift shop. 

No they didn't let us get that close but for 10 yuan you can take a picture that looks like you are.

These are Shi Zi Bing (Deep fried persimmon).
Liz liked them so much she had to go back for another.

This was the street with all the yummy local specialty food.

This is either the Drum Tower or the Tower next to it.

A Pagoda lit up at night

 

Sam's youngest sister, Elizabeth, is here visiting us for almost the entire month of February.  She's experienced the endless fireworks that accompany the new year here and of course has eaten lots of Chinese food.  But I thought it would be fun for us all to visit another city so I gave her the choice of either Qing Dao or Xi'an.  She chose Xi'an, so we packed our bags and got ready to see the Terra Cotta Warriors.  Although the overnight train wasn't as clean as Liz had hoped, I thought she did pretty well with adapting. She also made good use of her hand sanitizer.  Xi'an was a nice change of scenery and it has lots of Chinese history which I found very interesting.  You could say the highlight was seeing the Terra Cotta Warriors but I almost had just as much fun walking through the streets and eating the local food.  We stayed at a youth hostel close to the train station and ended up making some new Chinese friends that helped us see the sights on the cheap.  (Always a good idea when traveling to go with other Chinese and not get swept in by a "tour package")  Although I have wanted to do this trip ever since we first moved here I now am actually happy to have waited a little longer.  The reason is that after almost two years here my Chinese has finally improved to the point where now I can have a conversation with the locals and not always be looking for the english speakers.  That definitely makes travel less stressful and more enjoyable.  I think Sam felt the same way.  Enjoy the pictures!

Words to remember:

Xī’ān(西安)= Xi'an

bīng­mǎ­yǒng (兵马俑)=Terra Cotta Warriors

Thailand in reflection

We've been home for over a week now and as I sit here looking outside at the snow on the street it feels like Thailand was just a beautiful tropical place that I only dreamt that I visited.  Still, I feel I must write at least a little something about our trip.

First of all, I would like to highly recommend going to Thailand for a vacation but if you do, try to spend most of your time by the beach somewhere or in the jungle like areas because Bangkok is a very dirty city.  And I mean dirty in every sense of the word.  I won't go into details but I will say it was sad to see so many homeless dogs and cats roaming the streets.  Our hostel's decor was modern Thai with hot showers and air conditioning (something we didn't have on the island). I also got a great Thai massage, but overall Bangkok was just a stopping point for us.  The best part was the island we spent most of our time on, Koh Lanta.  There we laid around the beach, motorbiked around the island, and took a speed boat trip to another island for snorkeling.  It was everything you would expect of an island holiday.  

The funny thing was that although I loved the weather, the food, and the Thai people, I actually missed China! (a little)  It really came down to a communication issue.  I didn't realize how well I understood Chinese until I went to another country and didn't even know how to say hello!  Of course many people there can speak English, especially in the tourist areas, but its definitely not the same as speaking the local language.  Sam immediately starting asking how to say some simple things like hello, thank you, and how much does something cost.  The trouble was if he asked how much something cost the reply would be in Thai and he had no clue what they were saying.  You can imagine how happy we were to meet Chinese people in many places that we went.  It felt like every time I turned around Sam had found another Chinese person to talk to.   Apparently Thailand is a very popular vacation spot for Chinese tour groups. 

Some more pics:

Where we stayed on the island of Koh Lanta

Our bungalow was called the Red Snapper

One of our snorkeling tour guides

This island  (Koh Rock) had several huge lizards roaming around looking for left overs from our lunch

This is a better pic of Sam on the motorbike

Open air market in Trang, Thailand

Took the overnight train from Trang to Bangkok

Picture from the train

Our room in at the Cozy Bangkok Hostel

View of Bangkok from our Hostel

Last meal in Thailand and yummy iced coffee too!

Words to remember:

泰国 (Tài­guó) = Thailand

旅行 (lǚ­xíng) = to travel