Xi'an 2.0, or When Stazi Bought a Guzheng

We went to Xi'an again over the Ides of March; this time, we traveled as a pack, flew, and had a rather annoying and ineffectual tour guide. They pastured us in horrible, overpriced restaurants that were big on the fancy napkins and various innards, and pretty lacking in food quality, flavor, and edibility. So that was unfortunate. Luckily, it being my third time to Xi'an, I managed to escape the painful tourist-trap adventure to the Bingmayong, the Terracotta Army, and sneaked away several times with Chantal to eat pineapple-on-a-stick, 1 kuai tea-eggs, and copious amounts of pearl milk tea.

I also bought a guzheng.
Not just any guzheng, though; Chantal's old one, that she somehow managed to transport on a charter bus from her new campus to the old one, and from there, we squeezed it onto crowded public buses that looked unfavorably upon too big a backpack, let alone a fragile instrument the size of a small teenager. The next day, I also dropped 300 kuai on a hard case for my new acquisition; we wrestled it onto a bus, the driver of which was under the impression his vehicle was a taxi. After a couple of wild turns where the case almost took me down, the guy next to me (who was also in danger of being buffeted by the sarcophagus-size monstrosity) smirked and helped me hang onto it. The driver also let us out the front door. People are just nicer when you're carrying an instrument the size of you!

The Great Mosque of Xi'an, right before evening prayers.

In the Sha'anxi province History Museum.

Forest of Stone Steles (calligraphy).

It was my birthday!


Chantal and I explored another siheyuan in the Muslim Quarter.