The show must go on

I've been thinking of a lot of them opening lines as an explanation for my seemingly overdue absence. I know most of you were shivering in your beds from the blog rehab I have made you go through, but I really doubt that any real harm was done. For my explanation, let's just say that I'm not a real writer. A REAL writer will write day or night, through the cold winter and the hot summer... Sure, he may have here and there the infamous “Writers block”, though such blockage is not my case. You see… I was happy. When I'm happy, I don't feel like writing. Simple as that. I've felt much more the desire to chew my own teeth than to sit down and babble about what I usually babble.
But now I'm, once again, brooding. Raquel has left by now, that you all know, and I was left alone to wander this savage land of chinese. All in all, There is a Ton of information in my feeble mind just waiting to pop out right now, and I don’t know if I'll be able to salvage it all into a form of writing.

Let's start with a quick summary – we were in Shanghai, sad and beaten after failing to secure a job that would have granted us with a visa. Our last day was comprised of buying tickets to Beijing (after we found out there were none to Xian, well except for "standing tickets"), and most of our time was consumed by actually finding the tickets office. I think we spent some 2 or 3 hours under the scorching sun, walking from one counter to the other, from one giant building to the next.

To Shanghai "Bail-way"

Only today! Special "Wickets"!

Anyway, we left Shanghai, and, thankfully, the annoying Wenona (long story). The train to Beijing was a fast one, and we soon emerged in the big city. Really, Really, BIG city.
We found out quickly enough that the Subway station near the railway station is closed, probably due to the fact that it's still being built as we speak. Everything is and looks as though it was built or in the process of being built for the sole purpose of the grandeur of the coming Olympics spectacle. But never mind that. The next 5 days or so we spent by walking to and fro the main city area... you can't even try to escape it, since the sheer size of it doesn't let you. The only “outside” area we've been to was the “Great wall”, which was actually worth it, though throughout the 4 hours hike I kept on wondering why I keep on paying for stuff I end up suffering at? But luckily, We had brought my 7eleven umbrella I bought on the first day in China, and though it looked silly, it helped a lot..

would you like starfish with that?

Believe it or not, the scorpions are still alive when put on the stake

Forbidden city. We didn't enter the city itself... it costs money, you see...


Me naked on the wall

Me Wishing I'd be dead, on the wall

At a night club area

Just dancing with my homeys.......

We Were ambushed by hundreds of kids with a fetish for foreigners. we just stood for 10 minutes taking pictures with them.

We knew the day of reckoning was coming, and the tears were welling up as we got closer to that moment. To tell you the truth, I didn't realise how much I'm going to miss her.. And I'm not even talking about the sex... just seeing her face on skype video made her look so distant.. too distant from my grasp. When will I see her again, in person... I do not know. Booking a ticket to Xian was the only imaginable thing I could have done. I didn't have any idea where to continue, nor the will to actually move myself to do something, so Xian became the default, since Raquel and I were suppose to go there together. I left the next day, and got to Xian today at 8:00 (now it's actually yesterday (and now the day before yesterday)).

Even before I was out of the train station, I had managed to get ridiculed by the ticket officer for my bountiful chest hair.

Everybody in the town were waiting for me

Brushing that aside, I phoned the lady of the hostel I was planning to stay at to get some directions, which turned out to be relatively easy. I Quickly hopped on the bus, next to the grim gray walls, where it took me far away from the hustle and bustle of the inner city. May, the hostel owner and a very nice English speaking girl, picked me up at the bus station, and I followed her to the hostel, next to… well, actually, it was next to nowhere, on the corner of a corner of a quiet dusty side street.. She took me to my dorm room, where a single guy was trying his best to sleep (till I came). I settled down, spoke a bit with the guy, Tim by the name, had some lovely breakfast offered by the hostess and her cute great grandmother for a cheap price, and soon I was on my way to explore the famed antiquity of Xian.

The hostel. Guess which one of them is it...

It was fairly easy and cheap (one yuan) getting to the center of town, even from where I was staying. Soon enough I was gazing at the Bell tower, a relatively meek and undoubtedly reconstructed piece of architecture, especially when you got the huge Shopping mall towering above it. I didn't even bothered getting inside the tower itself, since the price was fairly high and not worth it.

The bell tower, and the mall tower.

I moved on, walking through the bustling streets with the sun in my back boiling everything to unbearable temperatures. As I was walking through a relatively calm street, watching various printing and symbols making shops (such as M for McDonald's), I stumbled upon the cutest sight I've seen in a while – 4 puppies chasing and playing with each other on the other side of a glassed door of a small pet shop. I, of course, entered and joined the festivities. Of course it was weird for the chinese people who were inside to see this strange foreigner coming out of nowhere and chasing after little puppies, but they didn't really mind, so I took the liberty of being at liberty.
I also saw one of the most insanely gorgeously stunning cat I've seen in my life, with a smooth grey white and black fur, and so cuddly you can eat him.

But never mind that. After a bit more of walking, I entered a peaceful market, where the vendors don’t actually give a rats ass whether you buy their crap or not, since they were too busy playing cards and enjoying the quiet day.

A Good luck cricket

I ended up on the southern gate wall. I must say, that the walls around the inner city are really well preserved, but unfortunately, someone decided, much like in Jerusalem, that all the other buildings should be built by the same stone and the same color as the ancient wall itself, which makes a nice shopping mall looking like nothing short of a state prison.

I came back to the hostel in the late afternoon, to be welcomed by the hostess and her family, And Tim. We ate dinner together, watched a movie, and went to bed while talking about different stuff. One of them was the plan to go together the next day to see the (in)famous Terra-Cotta warriors museum. Yeah, I know it sounds so exciting one could burp, but I promised Raquel I’ll see it and do a little representation, so the next post would be a museum walk and my annoying remarks :)

Kids playing in the sand next to a soon to be opened internet room