Xi’an: Ancient History and Dumpling Feasts

Today we woke up early in the morning. We got out of bed all packed and ready to go at 7 am. We left our hotel in Beijing and took a bus to the Beijing airport. While we were there several students bought Starbucks near our gate. A taste from home! We departed from the airport at 10:50 am headed for Xi’an.

We landed in Xi’an at 12:30 pm, right on time. After getting in a bus we drove to our next hotel, the Xiangzimen youth hostel. We had a small lunch of sandwiches and fries and went up to our rooms. The hostel is cozy and right near the ancient city wall. Later at 4:00 pm we brought our dirty clothes down to be washed. We all then walked to the drum tower to see a drum show.

Drum tower was a beautiful ancient tower rich in culture. After we got inside we watched a well-performed drum show done by professionals. We took many pictures in drum tower and even got to speak to some natives to Xi’an. Our teacher Li Laoshi is from Xi’an, so she enjoyed this. Some of the natives asked us some of the rules and customs in America and asked us questions about ourselves. This was an enjoyable experience as they told us interesting things about themselves as well.

After drum tower we went to a dumpling dinner. The restaurant we went to seated us on the third floor, and we had a banquet of food served to us. This ranged from ham and bean sprouts, to beef and vegetable dumplings, to sweet rolls and watermelon. A very exiting event happened in this restaurant. We got to meet LiLaoshi’s father. We all individually exchanged words with him, and he was a cool guy. After a delicious dinner we went outside for some fresh air and ice cream. We proceeded back towards the hotel to get rest for the next day’s adventures at a local school!

Marcel