Day 5 - Sell Sell Buy Buy

First stop on arrival in Xi'an was the defensive wall surrounding the ancient city. Followed by a visit to a museum. Our new guide David was quick to point out that this city is the site of China's oldest historical record. Human remains have been found here dated to 500,000 years. Our main purpose for visiting Xian was to see the site of the Terra-cotta Soldiers. Do you remember a select few of the soldiers touring Australia back in the 80's? Ever since then mum has been keen to see them in situ, so it's a dream come true for her. We will get to see the soldiers in their tomb tomorrow, but today we did a bit of a historical back ground check. The museum has over 300,000 artifacts but I was feeling a bit of a troglodyte Queenslander, and browsed a look as opposed to having a proper examination. Some times I get too information over load while traveling and end up like a grumpy two year old, only I did not have a stroller to fall asleep in.

I made a hasty retreat to the group meeting point and subsequently fell into the 'here comes a tourist with money', gift shop. The Chinese sales experience starts like this. You start to browse and see something you might consider buying, and then a woman (it's been a woman every time so far) comes up to you and explains nicely, what you are looking at. The first time I was really appreciative when the lady did it, but this was the third time in as many days and I knew what was coming. The next step is a tempter. She says 'for you I can do 20% discount'. My strategy is to acknowledge the figure and then say nothing. The next move is to consider what you want to pay. I start at half the price hoping to get to a 35% off the amount. On this occasion I got 40% off but I had to walk around the shop for 15 minutes with the same woman who had turned into part bloodhound, part sucker fish, part invisible woman, following me around explaining every thing I looked at. When you finally decide to buy something she pounces, and you haggle. It's quit unnerving the whole 'trapped in a honey pot' experience, but my goal now is to get a 70% discount on something so I've turned it into a game.

Lunch was at another western restaurant, but i'm persevering with with the local food as I can eat the western stuff all the time. I tried a sticky rice parcel today, wrapped in a lotus leaf. It was very tasty with a hint of a tea leaf and herb flavour. We finally got checked into our hotel, which I was hanging out for. Some of our cynical party were thinking our hotel was not ready so as to create another shopping event. Our hotel is amazing, a very posh 5 star joint.

The day was rounded out with a dumplings dinner and a show. The dumplings were part of an eighteen course meal. Every one on our table tries a bit of everything and the dumplings are made in the shapes of the animals they are filled with. Very ingenious. It was topped off with a sweet, in the design of a walnut shell filled with a sweet walnut paste. I ended up feeling quit full. The Tang Dynasty dancing and singing show after the meal was a visual spectacular with lots of colour and flowing material. The graceful deliberate movements of the women dancing was inter-dispersed with a flat strings instrument playing traditional music and an athletic male acrobatic display. The set was a giant LCD screen 20 meters wide and 8 meters high. It added to the rich colour which were not over the top, but created a dilemma for my camera. My photos of the event look like a big light display.

Well it was an exhausting day but fantastic. Tomorrow the tombs of the Terra-cotta soldiers.

Ben & Mum

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Location:Xi'an