To Xi'an- Sunday, July 31, 2016

    John said he would meet us in the lobby at 9:15, which gave us a leisurely start to the morning.  People are waking up a little early now any way.  We had the breakfast and sat at our usual table in the corner by the "Harry Potter" door, made sure all of our bags were packed and the rooms cleared.  Traffic was light since it was Sunday morning, and we seemed to be getting to the airport early.

     John took us into the airport and waited in the slow moving line with us to check our luggage.
 When we got to the desk to check in, he found out that an earlier flight had been delayed and we would have to wait for an hour before checking our bags.  At that point he left us, which made it seem like he was ditching us again.  To be fair, he did check with a manager before he left to make sure that our names were on the flight list, and we were able to manage without him, but  it was hard to picture, say, Veronica from 2004 leaving us like that.

     The other thing that left a bad taste in our mouths was that two days ago, when we saw him last, he informed us, politely, that it was customary to offer a gratuity to the guide and driver if we were happy with their services.  That wasn't a surprise because we had read that before.  But he said that "The Company" recommended $10 US per person per day for the guide and $5 US  per person per day for the driver.  We went along with that, more or less, but didn't count yesterday when we were on our own.  However, after he left us at the airport, Julie looked in the paperwork from the Monogram company and found that they actually recommend $5 for the guide and $3 for the driver.  Oh well.  (Note: He was the only guide on the whole China trip to be forward enough to ask for a tip.)

     There was a McDonald's in the airport, so we tried to get lunch there.  We didn't get exactly what we were trying to order, but it was close enough to feed us.

     The flight to Xi'an took off a little after 12:50 and lasted an hour and a half.  There was nothing unusual about the flight, and we arrived safely.  We got our baggage and met our guide for Xi'an, "Herbert."

     Xi'an (西安)  means "Western Peace," and even though it has had that name for 800 years, it was also known as Chang'an ("Eternal Peace") for a longer time before that, over 1100 years.  The area has good soil, is surrounded by mountains to make it easily defensible, and is supposed to have very good feng shui.  As a result, the city served as the capital of China for 11 dynasties before the capital was moved to Beijing.  Herbert pointed out several interesting sites while we were coming into Xi'an and getting a quick overview of the history of the city.  We saw a very large statue of the Han emperor who opened the Silk Road from here to the West and the Ming era city walls that surround the old city.

     We were all impressed when we got to the hotel.  We're at the Grand Mercure on Renmin Square, and it seems to be part of a complex of luxury hotels built around a lovely garden/park.  We knew we were in for something when a manager and bellhop took us to our rooms.  We're still in two separate rooms, but they are right together in a little alcove off the hallway, and facing each other so it almost feels like a suite except that our doors automatically lock.  The doors themselves are a dark wood with carved patterns.  The rooms are a little larger than the ones in Beijing, but everything about them seems to be a high quality.  The beds are just as hard as the ones in Beijing, though.  The bathrooms are quite big.  The girls had fun greeting us in the bathrobes that they discovered, and then pretended to do kung fu in them.

     We went to find dinner.  It's in the high 90s, but we only had to walk two blocks to find a shopping mall.  We bought some necessities at a drug store there, and then tried to get dinner at the "Pizza Hut."  The people who worked there turned us away, apparently because they were full.  Chinese "Pizza Huts" are weird.  We looked in the mall and found a Western Steak House.  (The first character in the name was the same as in Xi'an- 西- "Western.")  The staff spoke no English and at one point Julie asked one of them for a menu again, and she seemed to yell something like "Oh my god!" and ran away.  Still, our regular waitress was patient, and we got some food and desserts.  As we had read might happen, our waitress refused a tip.

     We're in a very pretty part of Xi'an, inside the walls of the old city, but with tall new buildings with charming tops to them.  We sat for a little bit in the courtyard by our hotel and tried to appreciate its feng shui.  We had it to ourselves.  Sitting by the pagoda surrounded by the peaceful trees, a breeze cutting through the humidity, several of us commented that it felt like we were at Disney in Florida.  So far we really like Xi'an and we are enjoying it more than Beijing.