China - Day 4.

Day four... morning in Xi'an, then catch a plane to Shanghai in the afternoon.

Ah, another beautiful morning in Xi'an! You can almost see clear to the next building!

You know, you might have thought that the pollution and haze would have been not quite as bad in the more rural Xi'an than in Beijing. You would be wrong.


We went to see the city walls and the beginnings of the Silk Road, which was kind of cool.


Our last stop in Xi'an was at a Buddhist temple that celebrated the life and work of Xuanzang, who undertook a 17 year journey from China to India to bring back and translate Buddhist theological texts.

Here you can see our guide showing the route of Xuanzang to Sandy.

So on to Shanghai.

On the plane I was pleased to find out there is no drug problem in China.


"Transnational drug trafficking has been effectively curbed, and running big rackets across China's borders made almost impossible, senior police officials said yesterday."

So says the China News Daily. So you know they wouldn't lie.

Riiiiiiight.

I love this pic of Sandy. It cracks me up.

From the airport we went to dinner.

"Shanghai Designated Tourist Restaurant. Shanghai Municipal Tourism Administrative Commision."

We ate, and went to, a lot of officially designated tourist places. No complaints, as the food was always tasty, other than the idiocy of "central planning" that thinks you need officially designated restaurants.

Other than the goofy sign though, it was kinda stylish. Retro stylish, but still.



Shanghai is easily the most westernized and urban of the cities we visited.

After dinner we went to see the skyline of Shanghai at night.

According to our guide, it's one of the top three night vistas in the world.


The others being Las Vegas and Hong Kong.

It was pretty, in a neon-y kinda way.


Our hotel in Shanghai was easily the nicest of the three we stayed at. Of course, it was once again, like the other two, a 3 Star Hotel. Never did crack the code on how three vastly different hotels, quality wise, could have the same rating. It's almost as if they're lying. No, can't be. Mao forbid.

Sandy decompressing after traveling.


I made my Terracotta Warriors fight to the death. The chocolate one lost because, um, well, I ate him. [At this point in China I may have been losing it a bit.]

Check Hotel Rule # 5 - "No flammable, explosive, poisonous, radioactive or other dangerous articles are allowed..."

Good thing I left that Uranium 235 at home.



We had no problems at all, but this on the door doesn't exactly fill you with confidence, ya know?

"If a stranger knock the door. Do not open & call Operator "44" at once."

Important Safety Tip! - [Upper Left Corner] - "Follow no strangers to the fun places."

Indeed.