西安3

Today- 17610steps (12.3km)

Who could this be now? 哈哈！Wakey Wakey！！Time for brekie ............

This is a notice at DaysInn advising hotel guests who wish to check out or extend their stay to please do that on 4th floor. So it is " check out and continue to stay on the fourth floor". Get it??

At the reception.

All the 4 routes to tour Xi'an. We have only taken the No. 1 route. We thought of doing the Hua Shan

华山 route but the 3 hour each way journey put us off。

 Here's our favorite tour guide again

In her hot pants summer wear

Looking at Nan Men 南门 from a distance

Nearby 南门

Entrance to 南门. We have been advised by the locals to never go to 北门 because it is 凶. So it is Nan Men that we will explore the views, architecture, and people.

Xi'an city is surrounded by 13.7km of wall. It is a walled city.
西安的城墙，林地，护城。河外城环城路，内侧顺城巷。

In the style of the late Chairman Mao .....

Enough of Nan Men and off we go to another spot.

After our visit to Nan Men we came past this 德教堂 and found a few relics that are interesting e.g. one of the swords used to chop off people's heads 1000 years ago was on displayed. This well was supposed to provide "sweet" tasting water to Xi'an's populace as opposed to "bitter" tasting water prior to it being found. ???

 Walking past another favorite sights - 钟楼 on 南大街. We did not want to pay the exorbitant entrance fee and so we give it a wide berth.

We detour into 北院门 street to do some shopping and to do lunch。 买了5件t shirts 100 元，哈! A touristy thing to do.

 

Despite the lack of enthusiasm from SM we decide to have lunch @ this restaurants because hey we are in Xi'an and hey, so many diners are eating in this joint!

 We order 1 bowl of 羊肉泡膜 and some other “stuff“ and 麻酱凉皮。

泡膜是回族最有风味特色食品之一。

 We split the 膜饼 into small bite sizes

The cook is preparing the 羊肉泡膜

Voila! Raymond and I give it a taste and spit it out. Xiao Zhang loves it and she can have it all. It was YUCK! Foul, #@$%^

After we give this a distance of 3 feet pole we wonder what the fuss is about this "famous" dish.

凉皮是半厘米宽的条，加黄瓜片，特制芝麻酱，辣椒油，醋，酸辣酱香，它开胃爽口。

 Our waiter is hard at work. He is loving it....















So far, Raymond has been a gem. He deserves a medal for being adapt at reading road maps, doing the research on sights and sounds.

The 王老吉saves us a few times these past days to sooth our throats and temper. It really works。

 Then it is back on the street to browse and smell and taste

We buy our 狗头枣 from this lady the second time during our trip. Not that she is the cheapest but just the touristy thing to do. 学人当旅客。Ha ha.

This is cooked ham，no cold chain consideration. But people have been eating it (they must have strong stomachs)

SM's passion is cooking and so she loves to see all these ready made spices and ingredients. 

 Feasting on ice cream and beer.

SM has become a 酒鬼。At every opportunity she would drink beer.

Next on our list is to visit this ancient Mosque 大学巷清真寺。This Mosque is still an operational mosque.
又称西大寺，创建于公元705年 (Built 1407 years ago. If the walls and floors could speak, they would tell of so many things that happened all those years....)

西安最古老的清真寺之一。这寺建筑手法中西合璧，体现了伊斯甘兰教寺院在中国早期的建筑风格。

This is familiar to us, prayer times for a day.

The inner sanctum - the prayer room. A room that is for the faithfuls only.

Donors for 斋饭

This one is funny .... Get it??

SM is a little famished because she did not eat much of the lunch that did not agree with her taste buds and stomach. On we go on our own after we have dropped our backpacks back @ DaysInn to have a cuppa, 豆浆 and 台湾紫米冰沙棕。

Dinner tonight is a bit of a challenge because firstly we are tired due to the summer heat, secondly what to eat? R and XZ obviously like their spiciness and have no issue with eating restaurant cooked food. My lady is weak in her stomach and pedantic about safe food and safe food handling.  Hence the "no-meat" policy when we are on trips to China. She has a good point.

I am like, stuck in between.

Definitely there is a bit of tentativeness in the air tonight..... Ka Boom!

No choice for all .....

We have to settle for something in between. That's hard to find in good old Xi'an.

You either have spicy food; or spicier food.

And there isn't a lot of Mackers or KFCs that we can see around us .....

 This dish is ok for SM. Phew....

This one.... nah! No way.

She sweats it through.

Every body is a little tired and grumpy, except me. Ha ha.

See their grumpiness? 

It shows huh?! Luckily we are on our last leg in Xi'an and it will be back to seriously good food in Beijing.

Get this??

Well, so much for fun and sight seeing and tasting strange foods. Life is a package, it comes with the good and the bad. In other words - compromises. Some are good at making things work smoothly, some are middle of the road, some are poor masters of this skill. 

We are all affected by factors sometimes beyond our "taking a deep breadth and count to 3".....

Tomorrow is another day. I hope the sun shines. Oh 神舟9号 makes it off the launching pad today!!!!