Xi'an

Well, it is officially winter (as an old quarterback Ron Lancaster would say) in Saskatchewan. After the Riders are out of the playoffs, it is official...and we have had some early winters...watched part of the game live but had to do some student interviews so didn't see the final part...guess it wasn't pretty...another year....again....Go Huskies

Spent last week or two doing some evalution so could not do a lot.

Have been able to phone home and am keeping up with the news there. Mark is going to Oklahoma...... and Jennifer is going to have a child.....is there a song or something in there....glad that all seems well on the home front....

I think I have my Christmas shopping done.....get out.....well you have to or it wouldn't get back in time...take a bit of a time to get there......so much for me wandering around on Christmas afternoon watching the look of panic onn the faces of people who had forgot until the last minute....including me sometimes...

Spent last week on a holiday excursion into the soutwest of China....to see the 8th wonder of the world..found in 1972... the remnants of a grave and historical record of the Terra Cotta warrior so Xi'an....it was incredible.....

We travelled down by overnight train..that way we didn't waste the viewing time....but we did waste a little time in the bar, I blame it on our tour guide ....she talked them into letting us stay there....it was there overnioght accomodationsas well as a dining car.....seems they have a dining car that serves refreshments......reputations being what they are, we had to close the place down at 12:00...we sang and drank and told stories....me, being the westerner had to hold up the whole left side of Canada.....and it is getting to be tough show.......but I was able to impress the peanut gallery with my ability to catch peanuts tossed into the air.....11 straight until I ran out of peanuts.....but a very good time and some good memories.

Got off the train, met our guide and were taken to our hotel.....a magnificent one...bathroom the with separate shower and tub....with a glass partition between the functioning part and the shower/tub .....interesting plan.....we had breakfast there and man did we (I) eat....it was a western and I mean western style breakfast...with real bacon, toast, butter, eggs, croissants, jam, fruit, yogurt, and a sponge pudding (I had 4 helpings)..I was so stuffed that I had trouble eating dinner.....my room mate was a young man going to Yale university and he had two other companions, a boy and and girl also going to Yale....the guy was from Fargo North
Dakota so he actually knew where Sask was...so I was able to be with the intellectuals that night.

Don and Eve and I got our bikes...hers had a bent back wheel and the suspension well it was not...there is a picture of a grandpa and his grand daughter having lunch.....also a picture of a tenement house.....they are all over the place and ther are many many people living in them...unenviable living conditions...and there are many worse...notice the barbe and then the butchers behind the walls...you will often see several of one kind of thing in a row....good old capitalism....the pictures are a little blurry....could blame it on the pollution but that would be misplcacing it.....don't know what the dickens happens....

We proceeded to the wall that divides the outer city from the inner city although with the size of it now it is mainly a tourist attraction...but it is impressive....it is a complete wall and is about 13 km around...I did get a few pictures but they are somewhat blurry...don't know why....some good ones though...will try to strategically place them....rented a bike and then proceeded to travel on top of the wall for about 1/2 an hour taking some shots and enjoying the views

.....Don and Eve and many of our teaching crew from to the other place (CIS) joined as well....interesting

The afternoon meal was very good, Chinese food and I couldn't eat it all as I had pigged out in the morning.....oh well, I will carry that burden too...The afternoon was spent going to the Terra Cotta museum....took about an hour to get there and we had about three hours there...some very spectacular pottery of the warriors....they were built over several decades and then painted and stored c/w spears as the emperor thought that in the next life they would be there to fight alongside him...he and his descendants ruled with an iron hand and when the other tribes finally rebelled, they came a destroyed the whole she...bang as well as taking all the weapons....they have not uncovered them all and will not until the technology is perfected that will allow the rest of the warriors (and I think there may be over 3000 to be unearthed) to be displayed so that they are not breaking down under the air and pollution, etc...I took a couple of photos but got more in a deck of cards....funny thing..they sell fake warriors all along the pathways....Eve bought the first set and paid 50 and we thought not bad, then I bought the

same set for 30 and thought wow what a bargainer....then someone else got a set for 20....and so on until we had a vendor trying to sell us one for 5.....got back and Kirsten said that one of their bus trips, someone was able to get it for 2 and a half...aaaaah good old private enterprise....got to love the picture to the Terra Cotta emperor....may look somewhat familiar....

Came back to supper and had a good one....lots of different dumpling....savoured them all..so many different types...all with a chaser of beer...Don and Eve and a few others went to watch a spectacular water show to music with showers of water shooting up as high as big buildings all choreographed to music....I stayed and went to the Habana club and had a couple of drinks with our tour guideand danced a couple of dances...the band was terrible but the inbetween music was good...the tour guide put the singers to shame when they came out on the floor to dance.....she had all the moves and more....I kind of sat back and watched...we left early as they couldn't sing to save their soul.....a very rich place...spa was 480 rmb...about 60 bucks.....one of the american ladies had the oil treatment...

The next day, we checked out and went to the Wild Goose Pagoda...it is just a temple...not quite the same...they seem to erect monuments for any reason....apparently a wild goose died while dying overhead and the monks wanted to remember it...some other folklore....so the Pagoda was erected......some very interesting shots there......then we went to the 2nd largest museum in China..the largest being in Beijing.....and then Xi'an will open a new one that will be the biggest soon....full of artifacts from various dynasties..our tour guide, was excellent, hew would give us information and then let us go on our own....and always seemed to know how much time to allow...

Afternoon we went to the muslim section of town where you can bargain.....adn I tried to get a picture of the sign ...and did....and then got separated from the group....I knew where I had to be by 5 o'clock so off I wandered...... guide from Xi'an was able to locate me after the otheres had gone to the mosque...I missed that part...I think he might habve been a little worried that I might not turn up again....Eve said that they didn't even miss me ....until the end...and then they wondered where the PD was...Prairie Dog....bought a few little knick knacks...don't know how I will get them home...maybe just have to leave them here....got a couple of Muslim hats....funny story...later...everybody bought something....even just dried fruit....one or two guys were cutting out profiles of people with small scissors...one guy even got the smoke rising from Mike's cigarette..an interesting place....I got one done for 5 and only had a fifty...when he handed me the money there was a little kid right by my pantleg....money please!!!!! and no matter what direction I stood, she would be right in front....there were many like that.....apparently some are actually owned by the local mafia....and are looked after.

Ride back to the airport and our local guide got us right in and left...silly me, I had a multipurpose tool pliers in my luggage..thought I could take them in my knapsack.....not...ended up having to go through checkout again and stowing the backpack underneath.....uneventful flight except for two things.....Big Black Horse and aCherry Tree were on one of the music channels and I was rocking to the music....much to the amazement of my two Chinese women sitting to my right...and I and Eve managed to correct several sets of exams on the hour flight....

My luggage came through very quickly and we booked Eric as our cab driver.....I showed him my two muslim hats and he started talking some sort of Pakastani so I put a hat on him, I put the other one on and Eve took a picture of us both....it was funny.....we were laughing hard....he is quite a character.....I told him could use my hats if he wanted to try to get some extra business..got home at about 10:30 and got to sleep about midnight...talked with Merle and Jennifer before I hit the hay.....

A very good and productive weekend with many memories... I will take some time on my next blog and just put a lot of pictures with some explanations with them...til then...don't try this kids, this is Ross W. Griswald..catch ya later dudes.