Arrival at Xi'an

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← 11.05.2018

Warning: some unnecessary candour coming up.

12.05.2018

1. I arrive at Guangzhou at 0705, local time. My first thought? So much Chinese around, get to the terminal for the next flight ASAP because it'd be quite a story if I missed my flight after a halt of ~5h. Next thought: I'm back to the realm of toilet paper (uff!). Next thought: Hey, they have Indian style toilets in China, wonder how that happened. [Next thought: why am I so obsessed with pooping ..]

2. Someone had once told me, China runs on WeChat. Well, the airport had free Wi-Fi in two modes. If you wanted to use a browser, they needed to authenticate your number with an SMS; or you could simply use the WeChat mode. I tried, but found just one person in my address book who also used WeChat. Finally sent a message to my family that I was okay, so far.

3. Had my first Chinese meal, "Ishigah coffee" (I think that was the name of the brand, not a type of coffee) and a black forest pastry, because they didn't have anything else vegetarian. 68 ¥, uh-oh, if every meal would cost this way, I was in trouble.


4. Landed in Xi'an, was received by a student volunteer from the workshop. Was driven to my hotel by a driver who conversed with me the whole way using an app (Can you imagine cabbies of your city doing this?). He was nice and friendly, but unfortunately the app didn't like my voice / Indian accent much, and when I tried telling him that we were going to visit the Qinling Mountains (spoken as Chinling mountains, as I know now), the app translated it as, I'm going to kill a lot of people. I also tried inviting him to India but apparently "India" is spoken dangerously close to "in there", and at that point, I kinda gave up on the app. FYI, if you want to tell a Chinese person that you're from India, you just point at yourself like an imbecile and say "Hindu", and then they go "Aaaaaaah".

5. The Chinese must have too much money, because the hotel room was super nice. I have no clue why they'd put a grad student in a swanky place like this, but hey, I'm certainly not complaining.


One problem that I am complaining about though is that there was no lock on the bathroom door. Somebody please explain this to me. In English.

6. Apparently I was to share a room with a German girl. I (alongwith some of my friends) got quite excited at this point.

7. Dinner was served at 1830 (!). I only had boiled vegetables and fruits, and realized that this was going to be problematic. But then I reminded myself I've brought enough 2-minute upma for at least a few days.

8. Whenever I visit a new city, I like to start by walking around the roads close to where I am put up, just to know the neighborhood well in case I am ever lost.

From a pedestrian bridge close by

Walked around for about an hour, and came to the following preliminary conclusions about Xi'an:
a. It's very clean.
b. A LOT of people like to eat out.
c. People like their cellphones very much.
d. I must absolutely avoid the areas with street food stalls, because these people really like meat.
(At this point, I must say "thank you, but no thank you" to everyone who's been suggesting that I try meat / fish here.)



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