Movie, Mosque, chicken and Good-bye

It was 5 days ago I presume. The gang of four - Ana, Lidi, Tim and I, went to see the shrine of 8 suicidal immortals, or something like that. It was boring, not to mention closed at that hour, and the market next to it was pitifully minuscule. Luckily, we had a plan B, which was to go see a movie. The lovely hostess has granted us 2 free tickets for any movie we wanted to see, so we went and saw an animated Chinese movie, surprisingly with subtitles. It was actually quite nice, even though some of of the time the movie quality looked suspiciously similar to a ripped movie.
But never mind, we had fun. Going back to the hostel, we celebrated the soon to be departure of the girls with beer and an orgy... no, I'm kidding, there wasn't any beer.

The next day started a bit uneventful. I woke up early, as usual to my roommate displeasure, and did absolutely nothing the whole of the day, till Tim and I decided to pay the great mosque in the center of town a visit. Joining us, were an nice Italian couple who just got to Xian (and China).

A mosque... can you believe it?

We got off at the center of town, and the walk to the mosque was a short one. On the way to the Mosque we entered the Muslim (sort of) market, with lots of shiny and crappy quality souvenirs, just perfect for the Italian newbies. The Italian guy bought a bag at almost 180 yuan (90 shekels) before we stopped him and forced him to bargain, though he didn't understand why (it was such a low price for him).

The Retrdsp... huh?!

Entering the Mosque itself, I was surprised to see a very well tended garden inside a peaceful court with Chinese architecture that did not even hint the Muslim structural design I'm so used to. I even forgot the annoyance of the money I had to pay to enter. It was really worth it. I even found an interesting possible relation between stone turtles that were located all over the Muslim premises and the famous stone turtle remnant of the mongol empires capital city of Karakorum (interesting, hmm?). Just to make sure, I had sent the evidence to my former professor on that matter.

Going out of the Mosque, we continued walking around the city, through the various roads and markets, and ended up in a local restaurant. The Italian guy ordered an interesting dish, which we found out to be even more interesting. It was spicy chicken, but without the actual meat... all the rest was there, but not the meat.

It was evening time when we entered the hostel. I was sitting at the computer when May, the hostess, addressed me with her grave news. It appears that the police visited her today, and ordered her to evacuate all the foreigners who were staying at her hostel till midnight, due to new rules that came to effect because of the Olympics. Their explanation was that the hostel was too far away from the city center for their taste, so we had to leave... today!
We were of course, shocked, and bewildered without any clue to what to do... all of us adored the little hostel we called home, and some of the foreigners arrived that very same day that they were told to leave. In the end, May and us decided that we should stay for the night, but hidden in the upper floors of the building, so that the police won't find us if they come to do a search. So we all huddled together on the upper floors - mostly the dorm rooms. The evening was gone early... we all killed the light and stayed in our beds, quietly, for fear of the police, for fear that something will happen to May and her family for not following orders.

Me and the adorable Nainai (grandma)

Luckily, the night went pass peacefully. No police, no nothing. But we knew that in the morning we were obligated to find a new place to stay. We all got up, with somber looks and tired faces from an inconvenient slumber, and one by one has left the premises to another hostel. May and her brother followed us all the way and made sure that we are comfortable and satisfied enough... perhaps they were feeling guilty somehow... I decided taking the opportunity of leaving the comfy hostel, so I bought bus tickets to a new place, Cheng-du. It was hard and sad to say goodbye, especially in these circumstances.

That very same day, I was on the bus, looking at the eclipse that had set the night upon the land.