Weekend, Part 1: Pre-Xi'an

On Thursday our Hanyu/Tingli class-posse went out to Wudaokou and got Japanese food and then went out and danced until we melted into pools of sweat and our limbs fell off. It was fun, although my ears rang for like an hour after leaving Propaganda (I can feel my mother cringing at that) and my lower back was crazy sore on Friday. I mostly just slept and bummed around Friday morning/afternoon, because we were meeting at 4:10 to take the train to Xi'an (where they have them there terracotta warriors). I realized before leaving that I only had 2 pairs of clean socks for 4 days...whoops! So I had to take my laundry out and get 2 new pairs of socks. It all turned out fabulously, and I was so happy to have clean laundry waiting for me when I got back from Xi'an!

The train to Xi'an was overnight, a 12 hour ride. It took like an hour just to get to the train station by bus, and then another to actually get on the train and leave. Woohoo!

Riding the train overnight was actually totally awesome. We were in hard sleeper class, which means there are 6 beds to a compartment, and the compartment doesn't have a door. I slept on the middle level, and it was all kinds of fun because the compartment is so small that I could reach all the bars of the beds so I could swing and climb around like Spiderman! It was excellent. Most of the time was spent sleeping, though. On the train, they turn the lights off at 10 and on again at 5:30 or 6. Hen hao! The crazy Chinese people were asleep in their beds by like 9 though. What a silly country.