Fish Food

We had a special treat this morning as we only had to wake up at 8:30. In the whole scope of Semester at Sea, that is a late morning. Still in the same hotel that we were in the night before meant that we would be having breakfast in the same horrible little attached eatery. And they still tried to provide what they called a ‘western breakfast’ and still managed to fail miserably. It’s the same way that if we tried to cater to a Chinese crowd with an eastern breakfast we would fail in a similarly spectacular way. I did find some banana bread somewhere, so I had a breakfast that consisted of banana bread and banana bread.

In the morning we were given an option. We could have the morning to ourselves to shop, go back to bed, or do as we please, or we could go to a local university for a calligraphy lesson. After the near-miss calligraphy lesson we had the day before, I was hankering for a good ol’ fashioned calligraphy lesson, so of course I was going to that. And oddly enough, only about half the trip wanted to, most of which were people from my bus – not so oddly enough.

So we take the trip somewhere in Xi’an to a university that I cannot identify. The university is completely deserted. When I say that there is nobody around, I mean that there is not a soul on campus. And we go into one of the buildings on campus, which is also completely deserted. This is a picture of the hallway that the classroom we went into is located. Keep in mind that the flash from my camera is the light that you see on the walls.


















We walk down that spooky hallway waiting for an axe murderer to kill us all, but we make it into a classroom and all sit down at our own desk. The desks have a thin piece of paper sitting on top of a piece of cloth, an ink well to share with the desk astride, and a large brush. This brush has bristles much larger than anything I’ve ever used before, and I’m expected to make precise characters with this behemoth.

And as we all sat like good little students in our desks, this environment was the most familiar educational experience I’ve had all semester. Going to school on a ship is never normal. It wasn’t at the beginning of the trip, and as we’re nearing the end, it still remains abnormal.














So a teacher walks in the room, and I’m not sure that she didn’t magically appear from thin air right outside the classroom door, because I have no idea where she could have come from, and our incredibly chatty guide designates herself as the translator, as the teacher does not speak English. I had a bad feeling that we were not going to get a straight translation. The guide was going to put her own interjections in, because who else would know?

Very quickly we learn that if we want to draw a horizontal line, that’s called, rather pronounced, ‘hung,’ and a vertical line is pronounced ‘shoe.’ The teacher is then at the front of the room hunging and shoeing through the history of Chinese characters, which you can see a bit of in the photo above. The language dates back 5000 years, then about 2200 years ago, the characters had changed somewhat, then 2000 years ago they had evolved again, and somewhere between there and today, we have the characters that are in use now. They were much easier 5000 years ago. The Moon looked like a crescent of the Moon. Now you can’t make heads or tails of the character.

Once we had the truncated history of Chinese characters (and by the way, you’re only considered fluent in the language when you’re fluent with at least knowledge of 6,000 characters, and if you want to get anywhere in life, you’ve got to have a 10,000 character knowledge base), we were taught how to make some of the most basic characters. We folded our paper into twelve sections then taught how to make each of the characters. And it’s not always what the finished product looks like as much as it is how the character is made, as in what brush strokes you make to create the character. They don’t have an alphabet, so the characters themselves take on a newer and greater meaning.

I was looking around the room as we were making the characters; and while I wasn’t the best, I certainly was one of the best. You can tell how pleased I am with my efforts:














Now that’s a smile!

We all quite enjoyed the lesson and it wasn’t anywhere as painful as our Global Studies class. Very glad I did this instead of taking the morning off. The next stop in the morning was at the Museum of the Forest of Stele. You’ve got to be saying ‘No way! The Forest of the Stele!’ Yes, way. This place doesn’t have an air of importance, and doesn’t pretend to be important, but it is actually remarkably important. 1000 years old type of importance. For example, throughout the Forbidden City were placards of information about the significant spots that we were visiting, and referenced something that happened there, or quoted some Confucian principle. Then at the bottom there was a reference number. And those reference numbers refer to the stone stele that we were at now. The stone steles are essentially the ancient calligraphy, historical records, literature and philosophy, and ancient pictorial carvings. These stone tablets are what the country references. It’s somewhat similar to our Library of Congress – except different. There’s ancient carvings of Confucius next to the stuff he said, for example. Here’s an example of a portion of a stele:














I’m not sure what happened to my group here. I got separated and kept running into the same few people that I really didn’t care to be spending much time around. It felt a bit like we were spending more time than was necessary here. It’s e decently big place, but it’s a bit repetitive, if you know what I mean. (Read: boring)

A group of us found a guy making a rubbing of one of the stele. The stele are black because of all the years of people putting ink on them and rubbing rice paper against it. I guess when the ancient texts are stone; you can do that and not worry about damaging them. Or having them in some kind of protective, roped-off area. I’m guessing that if you try to tamper with the carvings that you will be found and also tampered with.

That was interesting for a few minutes. It’s only so entertaining to watch someone make markings on a piece of paper from carvings on stone. It’s not like he was getting instructions to find the arc of the covenant – although I can’t be sure about that.

On my way back out to the entrance, I had some extra time, so I played around with my camera again to get it to take a picture of me using the timer. The gardens towards the front of the place are quite nice. There are small pagoda-like structures dotted throughout, and it makes for a lovely, peaceful environment. Here’s how the picture turned out.














I’m still trying to figure out crossing my arms. What would I do with them otherwise? Put them on my hips? In my pockets? Anyway, we met out in front shortly after and walked back to the bus. On the walk, we passed a few small shops that displayed what have to be the largest brushes I’ve certainly ever seen. These brushes were two feet long and you’d need two hands to use them. I’m not sure what I would do with something like that unless I were an expert calligrapher, of which I am not.

All that and now it was only lunchtime, but there was a twist with lunch. We were eating at the Orient Hotel, which is known for having a top-floor rotating restaurant, with excellent views of the city. It’s one of those deals where you come for the meal, but stay for the rotation. Our bus arrives at the hotel and stops in front of the doors. This is great for now, but when we come back out after eating, that bus is going to be parked somewhere in Xi’an. Judging by the lack of spaces for bus in front of the hotel, we should have ample opportunity to walk off our lunch.

We were given no direction how to get to the restaurant. At the time we didn’t know that this was a top-floor restaurant. All we knew was that it rotates. This group of the blind leading the blind found an elevator and went to the top and made it to the restaurant. But before I continue, I want you to think to yourself. I want you to remember some of the moments that have happened to me since the voyage started. And I want you to take those into account and divine what I’m about to say about the restaurant.

The rotating restaurant was not rotating. To say that I was shocked would be totally false. That fact was one of the most unsurprising moments of the voyage. I was so prepared to dine at the non-rotating rotating restaurant that there wasn’t even a second thought.

The views from the top were very nice. Unfortunately, the 8 million residents of this largely industrial city don’t exactly live in a beautiful city. Low and gray are two adjectives that you don’t want to have to use to describe a city, but they’re applicable here. It would have been better if the smog didn’t lower the visibility so much, but beggars can’t be choosers. The view is what I found to be typical of my time in Xi’an. As far as I’m concerned, this is the norm there. And that’s not healthy for anybody or anything. But I’m sure I’ll be fine…














Lunch was surprisingly good. It seems the extra effort exerted in rotating the restaurant (however they do it) was instead but into the cuisine, which may have been the best stuff I’ve had in the country so far. The food was served buffet-style in a ring. The tables were lined against the windows, and the food was along with circular inner wall. I made sure to eat as much as I could because there’s no guarantee where the next one’s going to be. And given that tonight it our flight to the ship in Qingdao, I’ve got a bad premonition about dinner.

After absolutely stuffing myself, we took the elevator down and had no idea where the bus was. We looked up and down the street and saw a congregation of buses way down the block. Not really having another option, we headed down. Amidst the sea of buses, we found ours. As soon as the group mingled its way down, we drove off again.

They gave us another option at this stop. We could go shopping, pay extra and visit the drum tower, or walk down the block to the bell tower, which is free of charge. I nixed shopping right away, and seeing no real difference between bells and drums other than cost, I headed down to the bell tower with a group of about ten. I’m not sure what happened to everyone else.

Now that we’re nearing the end of what has been both an epic and whirlwind tour of Beijing and Xi’an over the past five days, I’m finding myself looking back at it a bit on the walk over to the bell tower. Like a few of the other ports we visited, I could not have done what I’ve done in the recent past. South Africa was under great political and social upheaval. Vietnam has been warring for the past two thousand years. And China’s doors have been unequivocally shut. If there is one word to describe what I think of China, it’s gray.

The skies, as far as I’m concerned, are perpetually gray. The communist government, as restrictive as it is, tries to imbue a sense that it isn’t as bad as people make it out to be. But they do a very bad job managing that gray area. As much as they might make you think one way, no matter what you do or where you go, it is apparent that this is not a free country. There’s a difference between having military soldiers standing around in Grand Central Station in New York City, and the Chinese standing at stone-cold attention strategically placed throughout the country. And I still feel like there’s a very steely sense that I can’t get rid of. China feels different. There’s something else invading my senses here that I haven’t felt before.

Anyway, to get to the bell tower, we have to take the underground tunnel. There’s a traffic circle around the tower, so the only way for people to cross the street is to walk beneath it. That makes sense – you want to cut down on the number of people that get hit by cars. And you want to keep traffic moving, too. It’s a win-win. Here’s a look at the place:


















On the walk over I was talking to Simon, the professor on the ship from New Zealand, and he was telling me that shortly before the voyage began he and his wife were at Victoria Falls in Africa. This astonished me for some reason. It’s a destination that I’d love to go to and don’t get the chance to meet people that have been there. I quizzed him a bit about it and how to plan and watch out for stuff when you’re out there. Since he’s been there the political climate in the area has become somewhat dangerous and now isn’t the best time to go, but it will be again.

Simon and I walked around the Bell Tower a bit. If you wanted to pay a fee they would let you ring the bell! I took a pass. I really didn’t see a reason to ring the bell than to be able to say that I rang the bell at the Bell Tower in Xi’an. Because you know everybody that I tell that story to is going to know exactly what I’m talking about.

There are a few levels on the Bell Tower and the one at the top gives you the best view of the area. Even on our fifth and last day of the trip, the pollution is still amazing. It’s not so bad that you feel it with every breath. But you see it and know that it’s going in and out of you, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Here’s a self-portrait to give you an idea:


















My bus is parked somewhere further back in the smog somewhere. I don’t see it, but I’m fairly certain that it hasn’t left me. Something else you can see in the photo is the traffic. That’s one of the four roads leading to the tower and it is a fast and busy stream that does not relent. Everybody really does have somewhere to go.

There’s nothing to do at the Bell Tower other than look around, so I headed back. I’m not sure where I lost Simon, but I did. As I neared where the bus dropped us off, I saw a group from my trip with an ice cream. But it wasn’t a Magnum Bar, it was a soft-serve ice cream dish and it looked delicious. I asked them where they got it and they pointed to a familiar looking building behind me. I didn’t know that they had ice cream there, but I don’t care.

So I walked into McDonald’s and stood on line to place my order. And it was here that it felt like I was doing the thing that most locals are familiar with – going to a McDonald’s. There was a slight moment of panic when I didn’t know if the attendant understood English. That would be an important moment, because then I would have to resort to the caveman-like grunts to get my point across, and while I’m sure that would have worked, I really didn’t want to do it in a McDonald’s.

The attendant knew English (well enough to get me a cup of ice cream) and I happily went outside with my ice cream. While it was no Magnum Bar, it was still good ice cream, that I think was more closely related to frozen yogurt. Anyway, I went back to where the group was congregating and other people asked me where I got my ice cream, and then off they went to McDonald’s to follow suit. It was one of the biggest hits of the trip. But could you imagine how much bigger of a hit it would have been if lunch were bad?

From there, we all finished our lovely ice cream and loaded back on the bus, leaving the city limits of Xi’an. But on our way back to the airport, we had one more stop to make. I still don’t know what to make of this stop. I can’t tell if this is something that in the future will be as big as the terra cotta warriors, or the Chinese just think that it will be as big as the warriors, but won’t be.

The place is another excavation site, but what makes it different is that everything being excavated is miniature. There are thousands of miniature people, all exaggeratingly thin and elongated laying in this excavation that appears to be very early in its excavation. They aren’t well arranged and they are scattered all over the place. But where the warrior site excelled in the awe of the site, the mini site makes up by appearance and presentation. We walked in glass-enclosed walkways above the pit in dark dimly lit corridors and rooms. We were at least fifteen feet underground in this immaculately clean space.

The corridor snaked its way around the perimeter of the area before descending to a lower portion. There was a pace the group was moving at with a guide, but we didn’t have to stay with the guide. I found the pace to be overly slow, so I ventured ahead a little bit expecting there to be more. After the downstairs section was the gift shop so I backtracked a bit and took some more time.

In addition to the people, most everything was miniature. There were small cattle, small fire pits, and pottery (much of it broken.) And they say that there’s much more to excavate, yet these hallways encased in glass seem a bit permanent for a greater excavation. Nonetheless, the Chinese say that as they keep digging at this site that it may be a greater find than the terra cotta warriors. I have to disagree because the warriors are also supposed to have a great more to excavate. The sheer number here would just have to be so much more, and that’s what time will tell.














After spending a little more time than was able to hold my attention (I was able to find a bench with a few other people to sit down on in the gift shop), we departed the site. Apparently we had to take a different route back to the bus and I had the opportunity to take this awkward-looking photo:














Not really sure what happened with that one. I’d like to be able to do that one again… Anyway, that was our last stop in central China before heading back to the Xi’an airport. And then my mind starts to think ahead of us. By the time we get to the airport, it will roughly be dinnertime. Will we be fed, will we be on our own, or what? There’s one option that I wouldn’t like – eating back at that horrid restaurant in the airport that we ate in on our arrival? I didn’t enjoy anything there, and really don’t want to go back in.

We arrive at the airport (without stopping to get something to eat along the way…) and our guide is just about to leave us when he says that dinner is in airport restaurant. Anything but the airport restaurant! And it’s not just me that thinks that, it’s pretty much unanimous. In fact, I’d say less than ten people went in. The rest of us spread out into the airport to either find something to eat, or check-in, which we couldn’t do yet. They took our passports again and we were told to meet back at a location at a certain time to pick our stuff up.

So I wandered off with a few people for a while, looking for a snack or something to occupy my time. The Xi’an Airport is really quite a boring place, not surprisingly. I found the Handleys (the doctors family) hanging around in a café upstairs. That became a nice place to sit.

When we picked up our passes downstairs there was a guy (best way to describe him) with scissors and a piece of cardstock cutting out profiles of people who will pay him – in a style popular in Victorian England. I didn’t see the need in having that, but other people sure did. Now they’ve got a profile of themselves that they can, I don’t know…put in their wallet?

Once we picked up our boarding passes and passports we went back up to the café before going through security. Out of all the airports I’ve been in, this one was the longest line to security I had seen. I’m not really sure why, but it was. Going through security there was a small sense of happiness that this flight would be the last flight of the voyage. After this flight, there’s only a flight home from San Diego, and that flight is still about three weeks away. It will be nice to not fly for three weeks.

After security I walked over to the gate and sat down with my Sudoku book I reserve for air travel. It has served me quite well since I purchased it in Manaus, Brazil. And after all the air travel I’ve done, I still haven’t put much of a dent into the book. And I’m quite sure that even after this flight in Qingdao (pronounced ching-dow) I still won’t have gotten very far into it.

Once on the flight I had a lovely seat – for a change. And I was sitting next to someone else from the trip, Kathryn (who happens to live just a few doors down on the ship,) which also has happened with a low frequency. And instead of doing my Sudoku book for the flight, Kathryn was chatty – and I didn’t mind at all. I was chatty back as it was something to do on the flight. The flight, roughly two hours, went by quite quickly and it was actually pleasant. I couldn’t have been happier.

And if we’ve done this once, we’ve done it a thousand times. There were many trips to Beijing this week. The ship only came into port this morning and it’s leaving tomorrow evening. All these trips have to come back some time. Our flight landed late in the evening, and the last thing we wanted to do was stand in an eternal line to board back onto the ship. That threat, along with the size of our trip’s two buses again brings along the dangerous proposition of racing buses back to the port. I understand why we need to race back to the port, and I want to get back to the port as soon as possible, but I’d also like to get there alive and in one piece. As I’ve seen in some past bus races (specifically the drag racing in India) these races can get borderline dangerous. Because for some reason, bus drivers love to be told to drive faster than another bus.

Qingdao, China

We exit the airport and hurriedly rush over to the buses so that as soon as one is filled we can depart. And it’s not just the students that do this. One of the professors got on the bus just after me and was already telling the bus driver to go – and people were still getting on the bus.

So we’re racing through the streets of northeastern China in the dead of night. There are very few cars on the road, or signs of life for that matter. The other bus is behind us, then it’s ahead of us, which elicits cries of anxiety from my bus and the bus driver goes faster and overtakes the other bus again. And all the while I’m thinking that when buses heading down to Atlantic City crash and flip over they most certainly are not racing another bus there.

And as we drive I’m expecting to see some kind of city and an eventual sign of life. But as we keep driving, I’m not seeing anything resembling someplace where I want to be. I don’t want to make it sound like we were driving through shantytowns, but we were not in areas that scream ‘advanced civilization.’ As a matter of fact, I felt the need to rename Qingdao as Middle-of-Nowhere-China. Not sure how that translates in Chinese.

And out of the depressing sites we see out the window, all of a sudden the ship appears like a beacon. This is the longest that I’ve been away from the ship and it’s quite the sight for sore eyes, especially after the parts of Qingdao we just went through. My bus wins again, with the other bus in tow shortly behind. And thankfully there was no line to get on the ship. I’m really not sure when the other Beijing trips were due back but they all have to come back here sometime.

No sooner does the bus stop do people jump up and try to get off the bus as soon as possible, so that we can get on line to get back on the ship as soon as possible. I make it on line in the first ten people, which I see as a nice victory. Bedraggled, unshaven for five days, and wanting a nice shower, I head straight down to the room and when I go inside I’m delighted to see that my laundry is returned and sitting on my bed. Yes, that’s the laundry that I haven’t seen since the day we left Vietnam, also that last day that I saw Mom. It’s nice to have it back, to say the least.

As much as I wanted to get to bed, I had to unpack everything from the trip and then pick and choose what I needed to repack for my day trip tomorrow. It’s one of those things were the bed is looming but I just can’t get to it yet because I’ve too much to do. I did as little as I could, just preparing the items that I would need for our sixth and final day in China, and then passed out.

Just for your frame of reference, today, our last day in China, is day 78 of 101 for the voyage. 78 days never went by so fast. Anyway, I was up at 7 to make sure that I ate something for breakfast, then headed over to the Union for the trip departure. It wasn’t that big of a trip, but still decently sized. Probably somewhere around twenty of us, give or take a few.

We all head down to the mini-bus and climb aboard. Our guide is an odd guy that had a couple interesting stories to tell us. As we were driving through the “ghettos” of China (which may or may not have been ghettos, but they certainly could have passed for ghettos) our guide told us about the local transportation. Back in the not too distant past the Chinese rode bicycles and cars were just not driven to any extent. Then the car caught on as a status symbol and suddenly you weren’t anybody unless you had a car. And then that devolved into being considered a second-class citizen if you could not afford a car. That seems a bit extreme to me, but that’s where Qingdao is now. Our guide never told us what he drove.

But he did tell us about the trip he wanted to take to Japan. You need to have government permission to go out of the country. So he applied for a passport out of the country, and amongst the questions he was asked was how much money he has in his name. He told them. They said that he didn’t have enough money and they weren’t going to let him go. Seems like an odd thing to be the deal-breaker. Needless to say, that didn’t exactly raise the mood on the bus.

As we boarded the bus, we were told that the drive to our first stop would be about forty minutes. But before I go any further, let me tell you about what trip I was on. The trip was about religion in Qingdao and we were to visit a number of religious sites in and around Qingdao. Forty minutes sounds like it’s outside of Qingdao, so I’m not sure where we’re getting religion in Qingdao from.

And so we’re sitting on the bus and we’re going through the unscenic countryside of northeastern China. No rice patties or sprawling cities. Just some stuff here and some stuff there. It’s a very hilly, if not slightly mountainous area. Much of it is along a body of water. I’m not sure what sea it is, but it’s some sea that we’ll be sailing through tomorrow.














Our forty minute drive, not hampered by traffic, accidents, or anything, totaled about one-hundred minutes, give or take a minute. So the estimate was off by 150%. It was about to be that kind of day. The first stop is a Daoist temple. Or Taoist temple. The pronunciation doesn’t translate to our alphabet well. The sound is a combination of a hard ‘d’ and a hard ‘t’ and it’s said with a bit of force and gusto. I’ll go back and forth with the spellings.

Unlike the thousands of Buddhist sites I’ve visited, there is no singular house of worship here. Rather, a number of small structures are scattered about a tree-filled hill/mountain-side. And the best way to describe the Daoist temple is to call it repetitive. It’s pretty much that if you see five minutes of the place, there’s not going to be much of anything else that you won’t have already seen.

In case you’re wondering, Taoism is an odd religion that doesn’t behave like any other religion that I’m aware of. Its three tenets are compassion, moderation, and humility, and it’s been around influencing eastern Asia for over two thousand years, so it must do something for them.

The “stuff” that is on the grounds is…I’m not sure what that stuff is. But I made sure to take pictures of them. One of my personal favorites was the omnipresence of this symbol:














It must mean something about the peace and serenity of Taoism. If it doesn’t, then I have absolutely no idea what is. I also found a giant urn-like structure that was right in the middle of a tiny courtyard. It looked interesting, too.














I’m sure the Chinese beneath me says something to the extent that any person that leans on this will incur the wrath of some long-gone emperor. But that can’t be as bad as one of the other features of the temple area. There’s one sickly looking tree with an arm growing at an odd angle that you’re supposed to kiss for good luck. This seemed to be a must-see stop for the Chinese because nearly every Chinese person that came by kissed that tree. I was not going to go near that tree. Just like the Ganges in India, doing as the locals do may not be the best of ideas. Besides, my luck on this voyage was been pretty good and I don’t want to throw anything out of balance.












That photo above is of our tour guide, who has the very Chinese name of Frank by the way, lecturing to us. Something that you may notice in the picture is the temperature. Some people just look chilly in their heavy coats. I’m the flash of orange bundled up in the back. Others look downright frigid, clinging to every ounce of clothing on them. You can tell that most of us misjudged the temperature this morning. This morning actually bordered with one of the coldest mornings of the trip. The only competition would be early morning back on safari in South Africa.

Around about this point, the natives (meaning the college-aged students) were growing a little restless at being led about by our sufficient tour guide. In the interim, I sat and had a picture taken with two of my favorite non-student ship people. Below on the left is Brenda, the best nurse on the ship. You’ll remember Brenda from both my trips to Kuala Lumpur and India. (To refresh your memory: Brenda was the one on the flights in India where I watched what she ate, and ate whatever she ate and didn’t touch whatever she didn’t touch.) Brenda is still my gastroenterological barometer. And Erika is in the middle. You’ll remember Erika as an RD on the ship and the advisor to the Ambassador’s Ball. You’re going to hear a lot more about Erika in the coming weeks, so we’ll leave her be for now.














Either sensing the restless natives or just doing what he usually does, the guide gave us an option to wander about for a while or to go on a hike up the mountain. Even the non-hiking types in the group were intrigued by the idea of breaking up the morning with a hike. He said it was a bit strenuous so not all of us should do it. I’m thinking that this is going to be a good hike and I’m quite looking forward to it at this point, as are a number of us from the group. Plus, there’s supposed to be a shrine at the top, too.

So we set off on the hike. There’s some stairs right when we leave, then the paved path levels off a little bit. Then there’s a bit more of an incline in the paved path, but nothing remotely strenuous yet. And about two minutes later we arrive at a shrine. “That’s it?” I said. “Wow, that was disappointing.”

The view in the photo below is a bit deceiving as the start of the “hike” didn’t start at sea level, as we had been slowly increasing in altitude during the tour. And the view was really not all that impressive. Still can’t see the sky. If we could see the sky then there might be a view worth remembering, but no.














And there’s a small shrine/mini-temple at the top in addition to the mediocre-at-best view. So we stood around for a while until it was time to “hike” back down to meet back with the group. After braving the treacherous way down, we weaved our way back through the grounds to the bus. Much like the Confucian temple Mom and I visited in Hanoi, I’m still not quite sure what the religion is about. But I’ve been culturally enriched because of it!

But now it’s lunch time already. (All that driving and hiking really ate up the time.) I can only imagine where we’re going to be eating, but I can sure bet that there’s going to be a lazy susan on the table. That much I know for sure.

We leave the Daoist temple from what I believe is Laoshan, and drive for who knows how long to lunch. Here’s a picture of the establishment. I will not forget what this place looked like for a very long time.













Walking in we passed a bunch of fish tanks on the first floor and we all got excited that we were going to have a nice lunch of fresh seafood. There were tanks and tanks and it all looked pleasingly clean. Upstairs on the second floor is the big room with the tables and chairs. There are four tables set, so we take a seat at the tables and each table has one to three empty seats, which I don’t see as a problem. The wait staff however, does see that as a severe problem and they’re going to limit us to three tables. This is where all the problems begin.

The three tables do not have enough seats, let alone room to pull up chairs, for all of us to fit at. Nonetheless, we’re playing Table Survivor and one of the tables has to go. Wouldn’t you know it was my table. I liked the people at my table, and now we were being split up amongst the other tables. So we’re all now awkwardly pulling chairs through the dining area and trying to find two people that will let us squeeze between them. Once we all get a seat, and get cozy, we can start eating.

The first stuff that comes out (and gets set down on the lazy susan) is the standard sticky white rice. We’re all figuring fish is following so we’re passing the bowl and taking a lean amount. We’re also taking a lean amount because that bowl is not big enough for the few extra people that have pulled chairs up, so we’re all going to be having a lighter than average lunch because of that.

What I didn’t know at the time was how much lighter lunch would actually be for me. A few minutes later, the cavalcade of dishes began and were placed on the lazy susan. Few were touching anything for a few reasons. First, we didn’t recognize what came out. Second, we were waiting for fish-like foods. And third, I was trying to figure out exactly what was brought out. Some stuff looked like bread, but it was stark white, like they forgot to bake it. I’m assuming that that was not bread after all. Some items looked like stringy brain-like things that I wanted no part of. As time went on, and the food stopped coming, it became clear that we weren’t going to be getting any fish. Apparently, this was one of those wacky vegetarian meals. Every table got the same items, though. Looking back on past meals, I’m very glad I never went to go sit with the sequestered vegetarians at their own table. It’s evident that I wouldn’t have much cared for anything at all.

It was here, with a few grains of rice left on my plate that I proclaimed this lunch meal the absolute worst meal of the entire voyage – hands down. The elephant ear fish in the Mekong Delta does not compare. It’s eons worse than that bowl of brown muck I got for dinner in Mauritius. And it was well below anything I came across in India. Congratulations, China! You have the title of the worst food in the world.

I dived back into the rice because I felt that I needed some kind of sustenance before we arrived back at the ship. I knew it wouldn’t be much of anything, but it was better than nothing. Later, we all decided that instead of being served the fish, we were served the food that they feed the fish. I hope to never eat fish food ever again.

Once we were all “finished” with our lunches, we headed back downstairs to depart and mouthwateringly gazed at the fish in the tanks on the way out. At this point, as if I weren’t impressed with Qingdao (and its surrounding areas, wherever we were), I certainly did not know what was in store for us in the afternoon hours. Let’s not forget that this is a religion in Qingdao tour, and I think I’ve seen quite enough of religion at this point in the voyage. So in case you’re wondering why I’m on this trip at all, what else could I possibly be doing in Qingdao otherwise?

Believe it or not, the next stop was a Buddhist temple and shrine. I know! I never would have guessed that there could possibly be any more Buddha! It was a pagoda called the Qingdao Zhanshan Temple that was built back in 1934. Here’s a picture of the place:


















The excitement captured in that photo is the exact excitement that existed at the time the photo was taken. Both in myself and the group. Let’s not forget how we’ve gotten where we are today. Five days in India, three days off, four days in Malaysia, three days off, five days in Vietnam, three days off, and now we’re on our sixth and final day in China. We’re spent. And on top of it all, we have two days at sea before five days in Japan. This is where the rubber is meeting the road in the voyage, and some people in the group here at the Buddhist temple were hoping that the rubber on the bus was going to be hitting the road sooner rather than later. We’re up at the top of the hill with the pagoda, and we slowly walk down and pass around and through smaller Buddhist shrines, where we can go in but can’t take pictures of.

Along the way down, I learned something very interesting about China. Our guide was standing next to a sign written in Chinese and someone asked what it said. He looked at the characters and said what the characters mean, then tried to make a cohesive thought about what they meant in that order with one another. He gave an answer that made no sense whatsoever. Here I determined that Chinese is a written language that is open to some interpretation and much less people are really fluent in it that we might have come to expect.

To say that the group was losing interest as we walked around the incense and Buddhas was an understatement. They were done. I was still looking at it all as something to do.

We arrive at the bottom where the bus is waiting and that’s where the mutiny begins. Half of the group wants to go back to the ship, as they’ve had enough, and the other group wants to go to the last stop of the day which, as luck would have it, is the Roman Catholic church in town. I think that would be the second or third on the trip for me. I decided to be in the group to stick around for the church, primarily because I could hear my grandmother telling me to go there.

So half the trip took the other mini bus back to the ship and whatever was left of the diminished group went to the church. I wasn’t really sure what to expect of a Catholic church in China, as I didn’t know that practicing that religion was allowed. I still don’t think it’s allowed, but it’s not something that’s enforced – if you know what I mean. We go into St. Michael’s Cathedral, and it is quite lovely inside. It was built back in 1934, then shut down for the Cultural Revolution and wasn’t reopened until 1981. Here’s some of the inside:















And here’s the outside:


















Inside there, you would never be able to tell where on Earth you were, aside from the Chinese characters that were randomly about the place. And for that fact it was quite odd that this was my last stop and memory of China – something completely different from everything else I saw in China.

There was a couple outside taking photos for the wedding. She was in a white flowing gown and he was in a black tux. It looked rather normal. I couldn’t figure it out, until I found that there really was nothing to figure.

Some people wanted to hang around the area instead of going back to the ship now. It was about mid-afternoon and while the neighborhood looked safe, it also didn’t look like there was anything to see or do. Plus, I was beat and rundown, and starving.

Back at the ship and off Chinese land, I threw my stuff in the room and went upstairs to get a grilled cheese sandwich. While still theoretically vegetarian, I don’t know what a fish would do with a grilled cheese sandwich, so I’m not going to call it fish food for my own sanity. And boy, was that sandwich tasty. I felt much better after it, although I did feel a bit odd. Hoping that it wasn’t the onset of a cold.

I took the rest of the day very easily. I got to unpacking my laundry that I haven’t seen in what feels like weeks. It was good to have clean clothes again. But at this point, I’ve almost got enough for another load to send out.

Slowly people made their way back on the ship, and as the sun set on China, so did my time there. There’s no view from the port of Qingdao, so as far as I was concerned we were out of China. But we weren’t out of phone range, so I found a quiet spot in the back of the ship and called home. I’m not completely sure of the time, but it’s late Sunday April 22nd here, so it has to be early Monday with the twelve hour time difference. It’s always nice to call home. It’s nice to know that the other side of the Earth is still there. And it wasn’t long after that call that I went to bed.

Leg 10: Qingdao, China to Kobe, Japan

Awoke at 9 to a lovely thought that I’ve had before: I have another cold. And this one might be a doozy. I’ve lost track of how many colds I’ve had since February. I think this is three, but maybe four. Some may have overlapped. I’m taking medicine for it and hoping that it gets knocked out early. I can’t be down and out when we pull into Japan. Japan is stacking up to be the busiest time I’ll have in port – out of all the ports. Japan is where I make my stand to prove what I’ve learned and become since the start of the voyage. The challenges that Japan throws at me will test my mettle and I will determine, once and for all, what I’m made of, what kind of traveler I am, and hopefully learn a bit more about myself in the process. But all that is hanging in the balance with the onset of this cold. And let’s not forget that the Ambassador’s Ball is about two weeks away – and I’m still the President of that. There’s a lot stacking up in front of me and there’s a lot to happen. But one thing that is certain – there are 22 days to San Diego. And this thing is far from being anticlimactic and uninteresting. You haven’t seen anything yet.

The Foreign Delegation

We pull up to the Beijing airport, site of the infamous running-into of a local a few days earlier, and as always is the case when traveling with a Semester at Sea group, confusion abounds. In addition to always having no rhyme or reason to checking in, someone comes around to collect everybody’s passport. I always feel uneasy seeing my passport shuffled into a large stack of other passports then hidden from view. There’s something about the implications of losing a passport that is incredibly unappealing.

The waiting for passports is never a predictable matter. In Johannesburg we were running late for our flight (that itself would later never leave the ground) and people were getting tense when the passports were gone for over ten minutes. In Ho Chi Minh City all the passports were given back, and I didn’t have mine yet, and then we found out there was a second pile, and mine was in there. In Hong Kong we didn’t even have to group the passports because we all went up to the counter individually, which was clearly the best course of action. There, the passport never left my eyesight. Here, the waiting game was on.

Five minutes passed. Ten minutes passed. Then we were going on fifteen, and we all stood around like silly Americans that have no idea what we’re doing in China. And that was a very correct statement at the time. In this waiting time, I keep my eyes on the lookout for someone, anyone, to walk out with a stack of passports with boarding passes sticking out of them. Then I saw them. And somehow mine was one of the first ones out. What was up with that.

They told us that we would need to get moving to the gate because again, we were cutting it close again. Yet there was a problem. Nobody knew the gate or terminal. After getting through security, we all started trying to decipher the screens to see where we needed to go because the information wasn’t on the boarding passes, in English anyway. You would think these screens would be relatively easy to decipher, but he organization with the letters and numbers was not smart. Someone thought they had the terminal figured out, so we all rushed that way.

As we shuffled through the airport, it appeared that our gate loomed in what looked like a temporary terminal. And if it wasn’t temporary, it should be. The floor of the terminal was on the same level as the tarmac for the planes and there was no cool air on, so it was a large, stuffy, warm room with uncomfortable chairs to wait around in. There was apparently free wireless internet, though.

Once we were in that terminal, there were more screens, but our flight was not on any of them. There was a rumor going around that someone had seen our flight appear on it and we were all in the right spot, but that was an unverified report. I stood in front of those screens for a few minutes, to no avail, before figuring that if everyone else is here, the rumor must be correct. And if it was wrong, we’d all be wrong together.

I went back and looked at the screens a few minutes later and our flight had magically appeared, almost as if it wasn’t supposed to be on the screen until now.

Not long after, boarding began. And if they didn’t hand out the passports alphabetically, we sure were seated alphabetically. I had to sit in the last row on the Johannesburg to Cape Town flight about a month prior and there was no way I ever wanted to sit in the back row ever again. The seats do not recline at all, there is less leg room, it takes forever to get on and off the plane, and there’s just no positive to sit there.

I was in the last row of the plane with the Wayland-Smiths. I was on the aisle, so at least I could stick my legs out a little bit. Giles is a professor on the ship and his wife, Kate, has come along on the voyage. They are two of the most wonderful people and they made it much easier to spend two hours in the back row of an airplane.

I pulled out my Sudoku book that I bought way back in Brazil, and still haven’t gotten close to completing because I only pull it out for flights (and not like there’s a shortage of those), and I did a couple of those puzzles. They’re very helpful during take-off at that moment where the engines slow down and I think that means were going to crash.

Before we departed, they showed the same video we saw in the Hong Kong flight. There’s one part where they show the people exiting the plane in the emergency escape slide. It’s very funny because the people do it in slow motion in yellow jumpsuits very calmly. There’s no way a real-life usage of the escape slide would remotely resemble that.

I don’t know if it was because I was in the back of the plane, but the flight was a little bumpier than my past few flights have been. We might have flown over some mountains along the way, too. I’m not exactly sure what’s between Beijing and Xi’an. And to be honest, while we were flying through the air, I wasn’t exactly sure where Xi’an was in relation to Beijing. I know it’s further inland, but I don’t know if it’s more south or west of Beijing. I’ll have to look at the world map on the wall of the room when I get back to the ship.

As we came in for landing they pulled down the video again so that we could see us land with the camera attached to the airplane. That view, no matter how many times you see it, never makes you feel any better. It’s like sitting in the passenger seat of a car and wanting to press the brake on your side of the car.

Of the two tour guides that accompanied us through Beijing, only one joined us on the flight out to Beijing. He was the guide for the other bus, so I really hoped, as did those also on my bus, that people would remain on the same bus group that they started the trip on. I liked my spot on the less rowdy bus with all the professors and my less rowdy friends.

So we landed and headed towards the exit of the airport, but we stopped before leaving. Dinner tonight was in the airport restaurant. I know what you’re thinking: is it a nice airport restaurant, or a not-so-nice restaurant? Starting the theme of the next 24-hours or so, our guides took us to a not-so-nice restaurant in the Xi’an airport. After inquiring about what would be served, some of the group dissented.

The dissension stemmed from the fact that dinner was not going to be that great, as evidenced by the fact that we were eating in the Xi’an airport. When asked if there was a place to eat back at the hotel, the guides said that there was. The issue was whether or not people wanted to forego their already-paid-for meal in the Xi’an airport and instead get something to eat over at the hotel. The group was split. My logic was that this meal was already paid for so I might as well stay for it. If it’s no good, then it’s no good and I can get something to eat back at the hotel. Plus, I was hungry. Flying works up an appetite.

The group was split almost evenly. About half of the people from my non-rowdy bus wanted out, and about half from the rowdy bus didn’t want to eat there. Because both buses were waiting outside the airport, one bus would take half the group back to the hotel early, while the other bus would wait for the rest of us to finish dinner.

And so, half our group left with the guide from Beijing, and the rest of us stayed for dinner. It was not long into dinner and not long after the bus left that I, and quite a few others, realized that we may have not made the right call. Dinner was what I’ll call less than spectacular. The service was horrid. And we sat at the large table with the lazy susan, so all service entails is putting enough food on the table and assisting with beverages. I guess that was too much to ask for. There was plenty of white sticky rice. And I had my fill of that, as well as trying a bunch of the other stuff. I don’t want to make it sound like all I had was rice. I ate enough to be full, and most of that wasn’t rice.

Once we were all done with dinner, or rather dinner was done with us based on the overall mood in the restaurant in the Xi’an airport, we headed out to the bus for the ride to the airport. It was dark out and I expected the ride to be quiet because we had all had a long and busy day. We as passengers were very quite and trying to nap, but our guide at the front of the bus was fervent to tell us the entire history of Xi’an. As time went on and the drive dragged on, it became clear that this hotel was nowhere near the airport. In fact, it was over an hour away. The city of Xi’an is actually over an hour away from the Xi’an airport. And the guide talked for the entire drive. She did not shut up. A while into the drive, it was clear that we were not paying attention at all, and I felt bad, but there was nothing I could do. The sound of her voice permeated through the entire bus, and even when some of the more rowdy passengers tempted their rowdiness, she didn’t stop. It was sheer torture.

We finally pull up to the hotel and check-in. It’s sorta late but I went back downstairs to sit with some people from the earlier group who hadn’t eaten yet, as well as some people from my group who also hadn’t eaten yet. The food looked better, but it seemed a little off. There wasn’t something that I could put my finger on, but the french fries did not appear well.

After dinner had concluded, I had to get to bed. Tomorrow was the big day in Xi’an with the Terra Cotta Warriors. I’ve waited the whole voyage for this stop, and there was nothing that was going to keep me away from it. But there sure would be something to make the day even more memorable.

Last night they told us that we would have a wake-up call. I assumed that the phrase ‘a wake-up call’ would mean one wake-up call. Let’s go over the sequence of events of the morning. I knew that we had to be out and on the bus by 8:30, so there was going to be a 7am wake-up call. (Again, with the waking up early.) So I went to bed expecting to get up then.

The roommate’s alarm clock went off at 6:20. He got up turned it off and went back to bed. It woke me up, and I wasn’t entirely sure if the alarm was an error or he actually set it up to go off. Ten minutes later the phone rings at 6:30 to wake up the roommate. I’m awake because I haven’t had the chance to fall back asleep yet, but I lay in bed with my eyes closed.

If this is the wake-up call that we were all getting, I don’t think my roommate would have gotten up and walked out the door. So now I’m laying in bed trying to figure out if there will actually be the promised 7am wake-up call. I figure there will be, and it’s not like I’m going to fall back asleep at this point. I would have gotten up but breakfast wasn’t open yet and I’d be sitting around. I have no idea where the roommate went off to.

Still awake from the earlier barrage of alarm clocks, the 7am wake-up call came as scheduled, and I got right out of bed because I had been up for the last 40 minutes anyway. I dressed, freshened up and went down for breakfast. Yesterday, they told us that breakfast would be a ‘western-style’ breakfast, meaning that breakfast would be foods that we were familiar with, as opposed to local food. Apparently the Chinese are not known for the breakfast choices.

And as I learned, the Chinese are also not known for their western breakfasts either. Although, I have to say that I am not an impartial judge. I’m not a big fan of breakfast anyway, and with that in mind, this morning breakfast was particularly not incredibly enjoyable. Pretty bad, actually. I had some fruit and I forced down a couple other items. The others who like breakfast didn’t seem to think that it was the most stellar of meals either. And there’s nothing like a stron hearty breakfast before embarking out upon our not-to-be-forgotten day.

After breakfast we loaded up onto our two buses. Thankfully, everyone stuck to the same bus that we started out on in Beijing. There was the rowdy bus, and then there was the bus half-filled with professors – and to refresh your memory, I was on the latter. Once we were on the buses, the guide on our bus gave us a bit of a heads up as to what was happening later in the day. We were visiting some other sites in Xi’an in the morning and would be going to the Terra Cotta Warriors this afternoon. However, there is a foreign delegation at the warriors today so our schedule may shift. Nobody knows how or when the schedule will shift, but if it does, it will only be about 10-30 minutes shifted. With that bit of business out of the way, onward we went to the Wild Goose Pagoda.

Instead of first going to the Wild Goose Pagoda, we went next door to the Wild Goose Pagoda Art Museum. I’m pretty sure that’s not the actual name of the place, but I can’t seem to think of a better name for it, or be aware of what the actual name of the place is. The best part of the place was what we passed on the way in. Not only were there people doing tai chi, but there were people doing tai chi with swords. With swords!















On first glance, it looks very cool until you realize that the fundamental key to tai chi is moving very slowly. So if these people were moving at a fast-forward speed, it would be great to watch. These people were moving at a snail’s pace. So while, fascinating and very cool to see, it gets older the longer you look at it. But still, more interesting than the entire Wild Goose Pagoda Art Museum.

So they put us with a tour guide, a perky one at that, as they walked us through the art museum. It wasn’t set up like a typical museum. To go from room to room you had to go outside and then back in the next door. There’s a picture below that gives the general idea of what the place looks like, with a glimpse of the pagoda in the background in the lot next door.



















The architecture in China is unlike anything else in the world. It is unique to solely China, even though the untrained eye would get confused with the stuff in Japan. But I found it fascinating that as wonderful as the structures are in China, they don’t always seem to be on top of things in terms of general maintenance. Take the museum for instance. Inside it was clean and well taken care-of. The grounds looked kempt. But the roofs were another story. Structurally, I’m sure they were passable, but this was all over them:















It just seems to me that having the roots of a plant penetrate into the roof of a building is not going to be beneficial in the long run. I could be wrong and they could have been planted there as some kind of rich history and tradition in China – but I’m pretty sure I’m right, because those plants sure looked they didn’t need to be there. What’s nice is that they’re not weeds. They appear to have some sort of woody base, which is nice to see.

Anyway, we were led from room to room to look at paintings and artwork that wasn’t all that impressive. A large portion of it had worn away over the years so the guide was telling us what it used to be instead of what it is. And a lot of the artwork is period-specific, in that you have to know what was going on at the time of the painting to get its significance. The guide tried her best to convey that to us, but after a while, it all blends together and you just go along with it.

At the other end of the museum was what I at first thought was a calligraphy lesson, but it was more of a calligraphy/painting demonstration. The Chinese use a certain type of brush and ink to do their paintings and it looked like it was all in the wrist, so I certainly don’t have a future in this sort of thing. After the short demonstration, they shut the door behind us and told us that all of the paintings hanging up around us were for sale, and we could look around and buy if we were so inclined.

Between departing China and arriving in Japan (only two days apart) I have a paper due for art history where we have to find some kind of artwork and write about it using terms and stuff we’ve learning in class, as well as a comparison to western art. So I’ve been on the prowl for something good to compare. And one of the paintings on the wall looked very interesting and I instantly thought that I could write about it. The way it’s painted is fascinating. I took out my camera and took a photo of it. Here it is:















No sooner did I snap a photo was there a frantic shout from a woman behind me, proclaiming, “No photos!” I apologize and quickly put my camera away, but the damage was done – I had my photo for my art history paper and I could get that thought off of my head. We were still shut in that room for another ten or twenty minutes wandering around looking at art that a bunch of college students were not going to buy. And the reason why we were shut in the room in the first place is because most tours that come through there are wealthy, old foreigners. And they actually buy the art. They haven’t learned that they’re just wasting their time with us.

I’m not so sure why we were so excited to get outside. The photo above shows the sky as anything but blue. And when they finally let us outside the gift shop, I took a photo of the sun. Yes, believe it or not, behind all that smog, the sun is shining behind there – somewhere.



















The perky tour guide departed us and we made our walk over to the actual pagoda now, because apparently that stop at the museum was necessary. I know I’m supposed to be exposing myself to the culture and experiencing China, but I’ve got to try to do that with something that can keep my attention span, as well as the attention span of a group of very tired and over-sensitized college students. It just didn’t work well.

The pagoda is a Buddhist pagoda built in the seventh century but has been rebuilt a number of times over the years due to earthquakes and what we’ll call daily ‘wear-and-tear.’ When we get to the pagoda, the group I’ve been hanging out with decide that they’re really not interested in walking around, and they’d rather look around the gift shop here, or sit around. As uninterested as I may be in this pagoda that you have to pay to go inside, I’m still going to do what I can to experience it.

But I walk over to the gift shop first just to see what’s going on in there, because it seems overly active. And it was exactly what you would think the gift shop would be. A bunch of stuff that’s almost enough to make you want to buy something, but you really don’t need it at all. In the back of the store (anytime you hear ‘back of store’ you should get cautious) there was this wacky thing that related to your zodiac sign and once you figured what it was, you would then have to buy something. I didn’t buy it.

On my way walking through the grounds, I found my new friends the Wayland-Smiths and I asked them to take a photo of me in front of the pagoda. It seems like a simple request, but there was a problem in where I asked the question, and I did not realize this at the time. I was standing a few feet in front of the pagoda and to get any of the pagoda into the photo meant asking these kind, older travelers to get down low to the ground in an incredibly awkward pose to get as much of the pagoda in the view as possible, and they did an admirable job given the amount of room they had and the unique restrictions surrounding the photo. Here’s how it came out.



















I really can’t complain about the photo, but after they left, I took a photo of the top half of the pagoda. Then I came back and brought it into Photoshop, and this is what I was able to do with it:



















All things considered, that’s pretty good if I do say so myself. I and so say so myself. And get a look at that sky! Isn’t that just stunning. As I continued my trek around the grounds, I passed by a fellow traveler whom I still do not know the name of, and don’t think I’ve ever said two words to, and that person asked if I’d like a photo in front of the pagoda. I can’t say no, and then the woman took a photo of me, but it wasn’t in front of the wild goose pagoda, rather a pagoda-like gazebo about forty feet away from the big pagoda.



















It actually turned out to be a rather nice photo. Again, the problem being that I have no idea what I’m standing in front of, other than a decorative-looking pagoda-like gazebo. As I continued to circle around the pagoda, I tried to take a photo of myself in front of it. You may be saying to yourself that there’s no way I can do it. If the Wayland-Smith could not achieve it, than it cannot be done! Well, I had to try.



















At the very least, I got all the pagoda in the photo, but other than that, it’s nothing spectacular. So at this point now, I’m feeling a little frisky with the camera as I try to figure out new and interesting ways to photograph myself, as clearly the self-portrait route is the way to go. And as I’ve now had this camera for over three months, I figured it was time to start playing around with the timer buttons to see what kind of trouble I could get into there.

I walked around and found a little garden area with some stone tigers (or are they lions?) in the area. And I thought that it was a photo op. No one being around me, I used the time delay to take the following photos:






































So at this point, I’m done at the Wild Goose Pagoda, but we’ve still go some time left. So I find where my friends are sitting around and I see them with ice cream. Mind you, it’s still around 10 in the morning. But just like I did at the Great Wall, I went over and found a Magnum bar and had it as my brunch. I was hungry as breakfast didn’t do a whole lot for me, and lunch was still a while a way.

Next on the Xi’an fun tour was the Shaanxi History Museum. Let’s make sure I make clear what this place is. This is a history museum with artifacts from Chinese history. I know a great deal about American history, and it takes something to keep my attention in those museums. I have a very general overview of Chinese history, so this museum was going to have to be something special to keep my attention.

But before we entered into the museum, our guide sat us down and started talking to us. And she talked, and she talked, and she talked. I was sitting there looking around at the group and none of us appeared to be paying attention in the slightest. You tend to think pity on the guide for having no one pay attention to her, but you have to remember the pain that she is inflicting upon us in return, so there’s nothing to feel sorry for. After what seemed like a mild eternity, she let us go, and that wasn’t all much better.

To the Chinese, this may have been the most fascinating museum in the country. To me and my fellow travelers, this was sheer torture and boredom to the extreme. And we had something like an hour and a half here. It was painful. After a while, I started taking pictures of some of the stuff we were looking at just to find a more sufficient way to pass the time. This stuff wasn’t even interesting to the slightest degree.

And you would think that a dagger on display from around 948 BC would be something impressive. Believe it or not, it’s really not. It looks like a three-thousand year-old dagger. Just as you would think it would. And it keeps your interest for a few seconds. The five-thousand year-old jars were not much more interesting either. Actually, a jar is much less interesting than a dagger, no matter the age.

But if anything were to keep my interest, and I mean anything, it would be the skulls. One of the skulls was from 200,000 years ago. But then the one next to it claims to be from 1.15 million years ago. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that humans weren’t around that long ago. It did identify the skull as belonging to Lantian Man, but I’m pretty sure that the ‘Man’ refers to a human man. So I’m not saying that this gets added to the list of shams, but I’m just saying that something seems fishy. And judging by what they had on display for the skull, they seemed to have added a bit to it.















I really wish there were more to tell you about the museum. We walked around through the two halves, which didn’t appear to have any kind of thematic separation. We wandered around trying to figure out what we were looking at and why we should care. In the center of the museum was a little bench and we tried to pass some time there between halves of the museum. There really was nothing that I looked at where I stood astonished by what was in front of me.

Once my group was done with the museum we went outside where a bunch of other people were already waiting for our time to end. Included in that bunch was my art history professor. So I didn’t feel incredibly bad about not staying inside longer, because if she can’t take it any longer, then I’ve nothing to feel ashamed about.

Our group outside grew and grew until it was finally time to leave and head out to lunch. This museum was still in the city limits of Xi’an, and the restaurant is much closer to the warriors, which are very far outside of town. They’re really not in Xi’an. And even while we were on the bus to lunch, our guide was unmerciful and talked us to death.

Although, there was one interesting item of discussion. There were more details about our arrival at the Terra Cotta Warriors. Due to the foreign delegation’s delay, we would be skipping the shopping mall out in front and they would take us in an alternative entrance, that would drop us off right in front of the warrior area. The foreign delegation is still at the warriors and details of our schedule were still up in the air, but we would definitely still make it to the warriors today. And even after this announcement, we were still talked to death by our guide. At this point, the natives are growing restless with our leader. We’ve had enough talking.

At the restaurant they sit us on the far side of this giant room at giant tables with lazy susans. I’m getting sick of these lazy susans and the food that they feed us on it. And beverages are incredibly complicated. You have to share from the bottles at the other tables because there’s not an even distribution of them through the area. Sometimes the food is different from table to table, and organization never seems to be of the utmost importance. And all of this is really growing old on me. I’m longing to eat at a table without a lazy susan, and to have my food come on a plate of my own, but I’ve got a feeling that’s not going to happen while I’m in China.

As we’re eating, our chatty guide comes around and informs us that the delegation is scheduled to leave at 2:30, so to pass some of the extra time, we would remain and hang out longer at lunch until it was time to depart. Also, if we were so inclined, next door to lunch was a silk shop where we could go watch people make silk. And I’m sure, if we were so inclined, to purchase some silk. I don’t need any silk, so I was in no rush to head over there.

At some point during lunch, the guide comes around again, and as I’m curious, I ask what country this foreign delegation is from. The guide said that she did not know the country of origin. And if we don’t hear, we could check the news on television tonight to see who was there. But our guide also said that she would probably be back too late because we were seeing a show tonight and we would be back after the news had already ended.

So, for as long as I can make it in the restaurant, I find it’s time to start doing something else than chatting, so the last two tables get up and head over to the silk place to see if there’s entertainment there, because this waiting is really not all it’s cracked up to be. The silk place had a place to buy silk in front, and then they had the back part of the store where they make the silk. And when we came in, we were told that we just missed the demonstration about how the turn the raw stuff that the silkworm produces into string form, and then weaved into fabric. It looks like incredibly boring and tedious work, so I’m rather glad I’m not going to be doing that for a living. Because if I lived in China, that would be a distinct career possibility, if you know what I mean.

I wasn’t in the silk place for long before word started getting around that it was finally time to get out and load back on the buses. So now we’re on the buses and we get some more about the foreign delegation. We’ve still got about a half hour drive ahead of us, and by the time we get there the foreign delegation should have left. Our guides went on to tell us that we should not ask the guards about the recently departed delegation, as they’re not going to know anything. She then went into a story about when President Clinton came out to visit there was the same song and dance about security and secrecy and shutting the place down for him. At this point in the day and the story, I, as well as everyone else, are increasingly questioning what we’re hearing about the foreign delegation. Something doesn’t seem to add up right, but we can’t put our finger on exactly what’s going awry.

I immediately flashed back to India when we were at the fort in Jaipur and we were supposed to ride the elephants to the top, but we were told it was a national holiday and we would be unable to do that. But as soon as we get up to the top of the fort, we see that the elephants are running up and down, seemingly on schedule. That lie burned a lot of people, but I just went with it. Some people took that trip for the sole purpose of riding those elephants. I didn’t; I forgot we were riding elephants until after I was reminded during the trip. What’s happening now in China is a momentary moment of panic where I don’t know if we’re going to see the warriors, or if were going to be in for a rude slap in the face.

Nonetheless, the bus trudged onward to the site. We arrived at the gate that allows us to skip the shopping mall, as promised, and went right in. There were some odd exchanges with guards talking to the bus driver and guide as we pulled in, but as long as we were going to be let off the bus, I didn’t care. The guide then tells us that she talked to the guard and that the buses can’t go any further and we would have to walk to the entrance. It wasn’t a far walk, but we were getting off the bus.

As we exited the bus, we noticed an incredibly strange sight. For being shut down with the foreign delegation recently exited, there seemed to be an awful lot of people around. Enough people to the point where all of these people could not have entered within the last half hour. And there was no line at the entrance either. This was when the pieces began to coalesce.

We followed our guide through the entrance. The way the place is set up is that there are four different sites, each in its own warehouse/airplane hangar type of building. There’s the main building, and then there are the neighboring sites, each one in its own building. Before we’re let loose with the 90 minutes that we were granted, our guide takes us over into a corner and starts talking to us. She loves the sound of her voice, and none of us can take it anymore. We’ve waited for months to get here, and we’re right outside the door, and she wants to lecture us. Absolutely nobody was paying attention. The history professor was not paying attention. We were just waiting for her to let us go, and trying to be polite by not walking off in the middle of her self-serving speech about something. I thought she would be talking for a short time, because there’s no way that anyone would do this to these poor, already tortured, silly Americans.

She blabbed for 20 minutes. I was beside myself, looking for an escape route. I didn’t find an easy escape route. But if she went on for a few more minutes, I was going to high-tail out of there, escape route or not. But before she finally let us go, she said that we were to meet her back in that same spot in a half hour. Then she let us go. Knowing that I had some of my time cruched as it was, there was no way I was going to meet her back there for more lecture. In fact, nobody met her back there at 3:30. We knew where the bus was, and we knew when we had to be back there. And that was all that mattered.

So my friend Rhea and I decide to stick together to get as much done as possible in whatever was left of our time. We go into the main building first, where the largest excavation is located, and the only was to describe the Terra Cotta Warriors is spendictacular. They are absolutely unbelievable. The magnitude upon which the scale is, is just extraordinary. This is the view you have when you walk in:



















But to be honest, there was a part of me that was, shall I say, let down slightly. From what glimpses I had seen of this hangar these warriors are in, I thought that the entire place had already been excavated, and the entire floor would be the army. Instead, as you can see in the photo, there’s the first quarter with the warriors excavated and restored, then there’s a smattering of warriors in hundreds and hundreds of pieces in various states of excavation, and then there’s the sections that have yet to be touched. The excavation is still in its very early stages. I didn’t know that.

Towards the back of the hangar were some active reassembly projects. I was annoyed that there was nobody there working on them now, and assumed that they were active works, and not just meant to look like active works. There really should have been people working on putting the pieces back together, because I could have watched that for hours and hours. But, we had a schedule, as well as two other pits to see.















What’s also important to remember is that in terms of ‘doing,’ there is little to do. The signs (that have English) are small and don’t take long to read. What there is, is what is sitting in front of you. And you have to stop and marvel every chance you get. To comprehend that this is an army buried with the intention of coming to life should the important guy they were buried with be disturbed. And as far as I know, they know who the guy is, but have not excavated his body. And judging by the progress in the excavation happening while I was there, I am not in danger.















So my group and I slowly move around the interior perimeter of the hangar. Stopping every so often to look at the new angle and see something that we haven’t seen before. Towards the back there is very little. In the photo above are some horses that look to be recently, or nearing, their restoration. I had to have a photo of me and the horse’s rears. Don’t ask why. The photo just begged to be taken.

If you’ve taken note of my travels through Asia, and specifically China, there are tour groups from other areas of Asia, and they travel in impassable packs. The walkway in the hangar is maybe ten feet, and sometimes there was no getting around it without a little gentle pushing and shoving. It’s not like there’s something special in the part they are (other than their tour guide). There is nobody at the railing fifteen feet away. I tend to prefer a free and clear view.















At this point in our stop here at the warriors, the half hour has passed to meet back with the tour guide for more lectures, and nobody went back. We’re still on the opposite side of the hangar. I can’t rush the moment. To think of where I am still blows my mind. Perhaps my thoughts are best captured with this video I took of myself there:



Around this point, the group starts to split as people want to see everything in a slightly different order, so I hang around with my friend Rhea for the rest of the warriors. We make our way back towards the entrance and see that the crowd on the way in had diminished. On the way in, there was a crowd seven people deep to see the place, but if you walked twenty feet to the left, there was nobody. Go figure. So we get over towards the front and take a few nice unobstructed photos.















At this point we figure that we’re going to have to get a move on to see everything so we head over to the pit next door. This pit wasn’t nearly as big or nearly as excavated, hence why nobody knows that there are multiple pits. Pit 2 is different because it consists of mixed military forces, like archers, war chariors, cavalrymen, and infantrymen. It’s in a bit of an ‘L’ shape, and still takes quite a bit of time to walk around. It’s also not nearly as well-lit, so the photos are spotty. It’s also barely excavated.















As you can see, there’s less to look at, so you can’t spend as much time here as you would at the other pits, just based on the size. And because I’m all about saving time and seeing as much as possible, leaving the back door of Pit 2 takes you to Pit 3. So we decided to exit Pit 2 halfway around, and head out to Pit 3. Pit 3 is smaller still. A little better lit, but the warriors are much lower in the pit, so it makes photographing both uncomfortable and difficult.















Pit 3 is known as the command center of pits 1 and 2, but they say history has been unkind to this pit, as only 68 figures are around. Perhaps there were only 68 to begin with. Who needs more than 68 people to tell everyone what to do. In fact, this is about all there is to Pit 3, below. Not an incredible amount, yet congruence with everything else on site, it’s all still unbelievable.















We have only until 4:30 to make it back to the bus, so it’s not that we’re starting to get close on time, but if we dilly dally on something – it has to be worth dilly dallying on, moreso than the average of what we’re seeing. And Pit 3 didn’t really warrant hanging around for an extended time. We circumnavigated the perimeter of the pit. There was nothing but the figures in the front of the pit, so once we wound back to the front, we headed back out the door to complete the loop back around Pit 2.

On the other side of Pit 2 were some of the more intact warriors in display cases. There was an archer without the bow and arrow. That rotted away centuries ago. There was a guy with a horse. Amongst others as well. We walked through because there was another building that we had yet to see. We weren’t sure if it was another pit or something else, but we had to make sure that we saw that, too. So we expedited our walk through the other half of Pit 2 to get to the other building.

The other building is more of a museum and place where they try to take your money. There may have also been a gift shop, but I’m not too sure on that one. It seemed like the original purpose of the building was to display a miniature painted chariot and horses that had been excavated thirty years ago. As impressive as that miniature thing was, it didn’t need a whole new building for it. They seemed to have struggled to figure out what else to put into the building. It did not keep my attention at all.

We decided to cut out losses and head back out. At this point, we haven’t got long before we have to meet back, but we have just enough time to go back into Pit 1 one more time. You have to. It’s something that I’m not going to see again for a while, so to get one last look at it is important. Even when we walked in the second time, and at this point there were many less people here, it still is awe inspiring. Now there was nobody right at the front, where everyone crowded around earlier, and it really is the best way to see the space. You don’t get to see the detail from up there, but you get a good appreciation for just the scope of it all.



















And it was at this point that it hit me. I’ve waited for the entire trip to be here. And the time for it to come to an end was upon us. I’ve always known this was a place that I couldn’t stay in forever, because that’s just silly. I’d always have to enter and exit. But what struck me was that I know that I’ll get back one day and, hopefully, they’ll have done some more excavation and the sight will be even more impressive. It’s not that I want to walk back in and not recognize the place, but I want to walk in remembering this very moment, and still be mesmerized. That’s all I want. And with that, we turned around and headed outside.

But where I thought the fun would end, I was wrong. The real fun was only just beginning. I didn’t think there would be mind games going on, but there were, and they sure were fun to get into. I see a small group of us outside in the plaza, one of which is my history professor, Dr. Joyce. Dr. Joyce then begins to recount her investigation into this foreign delegation.

If you remember, upon arriving there were an awful lot of people about to have just arrived if the place reopened. So Dr. Joyce somehow found a group of guys from, of all places, Cincinnati and asked them how long they’ve been here. They said that they’d been there since ten o’clock that morning. Dr. Joyce asked about the foreign delegation, and they said that there was no foreign delegation. There’s more to this section of the story, but that comes in a bit later. This was all I learned at the time.

So we’d been had by our guides – sort of. It’s not like we never made it to the warriors. Then we’d really have been had, as well as furious and angry. In the end this lie that we were fed only effected us marginally in that we went to the warriors a little later than we were expected to. But while it only marginally effected us, there was a greater impetus for the guides to lie to us.

As we meet back up on the bus and the truth and rumors swirl with one another, as best as we can figure at the time, here’s what we think happened: Semester at Sea has a policy that because we are on an educational voyage, all the of the tour groups are strictly instructed to cut out the stops at shops, as they are not educational. This however did not stop any other trip that I have ever been on. We went to multiple shops on every other tour that I’ve been on. We did in the Amazon, India, and Vietnam. This is nothing unusual.

But when this tour company was contacted we were originally supposed to go through the supposedly massive shops that lead into the warriors. We skipped those. As the guides would not be getting their commission for dragging us through there, they had to get their commission another way. And didn’t it seem like a bit of a coincidence that the silk shop was right next to the restaurant, and we just happened to be delayed on our day’s events while we were there? And the reason why we stayed there at the restaurant was because the foreign delegation was at the warriors. And it was just the cover that was needed for the guides to reap their commission from the silk shop for making us bored enough to wander in there, after being suggested to wander in there by the guides.

And that was the best we could figure the story.

When we arrived back at the hotel, after the information download the entire bus ride back (and it was a long download because we hit all the Xi’an rush hour traffic – who knew Xi’an had a rush hour?), our trip guide Simon asked us to remain on the bus while the guides departed before us. Usually this is not a good sign. I remember from my school days that this was usually followed with some sort of riot act reading. Instead, he filled in some more details about the foreign delegation.

He elaborated that someone on the trip, who he did not name (and I later found out was Dr. Joyce), confronted one of the guides that she lied about there being a foreign delegation. The guide was caught in a lie. She panicked and completely broke down, wanting to quit our tour and get away. She cried, which I’m still unconvinced was not part of the act, and eventually Simon convinced to remain on the trip. But he told us that although this foreign delegation was a lie, we should maintain the courtesy of not bringing it up again to the guides.

We agreed and thanked him for smoothing the situation over and going over it with all of us together so that we’re all pretty much on the same page with whatever just happened.

And that is the end of the story of the foreign delegation. But before I wrap up the story for good, there’s one more bit of info that I learned yet later on. Simon and his wife Anne Claire met the guides for dinner very late the night before. Simon was thinking that they were going to go over the next day’s events, but that didn’t exactly happen. The guides largely ignored Simon and his wife, and essentially told them that there was never any intention, past or present, to take us through the large shopping area outside the warriors. Taking us through the shortcut was the plan, and was always the plan. Which begs the question: do they pull this foreign delegation story with every tour group they have??

After we got off the bus, we had about an hour before we had to depart for our evening’s activities, which was dinner and a show of the Tang Dynasty. I had enough time to take a shower and turn on CNN International. That channel has been in every hotel room that I have been in that has had a television, which immediately limits the number.

Then there we were again loading up onto the bus for the Tang Dynasty dinner show. And let me tell you, what a dinner it was. So we all sit down at tables, and the gentleman that I am, I let people sit before me and I can’t exactly see all the stage, and I’m not exactly facing the stage either, but I figure that I’ll be able to make do.

They serve dinner before the show and it was three plates that weren’t exactly dinner. The first dish that came out was so pathetic that I had to take a photo of it.















Five French fries – count ‘em. And that broccoli in the middle of the plate sure wasn’t going to be touched. I’m still uncertain what’s more pathetic: the fact that the dish was five French fries and broccoli or that each of the five French fries had come with the ketchup already applied.

The next dish that came out was some kind of fish or chicken dish. I’m not exactly sure what it was because I never got one. And I told the servers that I never got one, but they didn’t speak English. Although they did seem to notice that I did not have food in front of me. And I never did get that dish because the next one came out. Let’s just say that I didn’t bother to leave a tip.

So dinner or lack thereof ended and the show began. It was not as good as the acrobatic show because I’m not entirely sure what we were seeing. In my opinion, it had nothing to do with the Tang Dynasty. I knew nothing more about the dynasty when I left. That said, the show was a number of vignettes where costumed people danced and moved about.





























It was entertaining enough to be considered a night out, but it was nothing spectacular. It was late when the show ended, and as we had a long day we went to bed back at the hotel. And it almost seems appropriate that a day that has had loads of excitement and boredom in many different forms, it ends teetering between the two with the Tang Dynasty show. And all of this and it’s only our fourth day in China. There’s still two more days, and there’s still plenty for China to throw my way.