Nee-how from Xi'an

Hey everyone, it's been a while since we've blogged, but we've not forgotten about all our friends and family back home. We spent an extra week in Beijing. We finally left a couple days ago though. We took a sleeper bus, a bus with about 25 beds in it on an 18 hour trip to Xi'an, China, home of the Terracotta Soldiers. We'll be back online soon and give ya'll a complete rundown of what we've been up to, including:



1. The rules of bartering: Lowball. Take 95% off the asking price. Then walk away...don't worry, they'll chase after you, grab your arm and bring you back. Don't believe them when they tell you about how they made the item themselves...the next guy has one just like it. Voila! You've paid 35 RMB for something that started at 180 RMB...but you've probably still paid too much.

2. Mao under glass...Good, but no Lenin.

3. Violent and sexy movies on sleeper buses, with drivers that don't know the way. Stop in the middle of the road and call for directions. The bus ride was the longest we've gone in this country without hearing someone hock a lugie...they ran public service ads on the bus between Jean Claude Van Dam sex scenes and Hong Kong kung fu blood baths.

4. Hutongs and delicious food...it's nothing to see an old man with a cigarette in his mouth, petting his cocker spaniel while he's cooking your food.

5. How we miss the clear and fresh air of Dallas and Oologah (downwind from a coal power plant). It looks weird to see a picture of a Chinese person wearing gloves and a surgical mask riding a bike, but when you get here you'll understand.

6. They really are bad drivers. The stereotype is very true.

7. The butcher shop is not only a place to get meat, but to see cats roaming around.

8. We could tell you how your seafood is prepared, but believe us, you don't want to know. Luckily, we have video (that we had to dodge flying blood to get).

9. If you think you get hit by a bus you will. If you think about getting run over, you will. If you just charge out into traffic you'll be just fine.

10. The Great Wall is exactly that: great...on a clear day.

Xi'an has been cold, windy and rainy. Fall is setting in. We're heading south to Chonqing and hopefully a Yangtzee River cruise. After that we're ready to hit the equator and some tropical weather.

Ya'll haven't heard from us in a while. I guess in a way no news is good news. We've not been able to upload pictures in a while and that takes a lot of the fun out of blogging for us. We've only had one good confrontation in a while, and we almost rushed back to blog about that. We think we do some of our best blogging to burn off steam, so I guess when you don't hear from us for a period of time that means we're doing pretty good.

Hope you all are too.

BnD