Xi'an...land of...nothing really! (Courtney)

On CCTV 9, the English language TV channel here, there is a never ending supply of uber crap ads, featuring basically every single town in China. They are horrible. And the worst part is, they are so ridiculously unrealistic. They are all tourism ads, voiced over by the handful of people who work at the station and they are so bad you could literally vomit if you saw too many of them in a row. Their cheesy jingles get stuck in your head for days. The best one I saw though, was at Chengdu railway station. Oh, I laughed so hard when I saw this complete piece of bullshit. If any of you have ever been to a railway station in China, you'll realise how farfetched my description of this ad is. Starts with some people getting out of a clean, completely intact taxi, which looks like all doors open (a miracle) and the taxi driver not only willingly opens the boots but helps you with your bags too. The people walk through a completely deserted entrance way, immediately into a spotless, bright station and put their two bags into the x-ray machine. In reality, you fight your way through a crowd of thousands, carrying everything they have ever owned (all in plastic bags, on bamboo poles etc) to get to the one tiny door that leads to one xray machine where the screen doesn't even work. They then are shown to the escalator by a friendly looking woman, who signs to them in sign language? The piece de resistance though, is when their train is announced, an orderly queue is formed by a handful of people (not the normal scrum to get to the front of the gate) and THEN, men in those golf cart things drive them down the platform to their carriage!!! Where is this magical paradise!!! On top of this, the entire station is spotless. I can tell you, the day we were at this station waiting, it had been heavily raining, and the TRENCH toilets had flooded. I saw things that no person ever needs to see.

So Marcus and I have been toying with the idea of doing a series of parody ads, because the ads on tv are ludicrous. I think Xi'an would be a good place to start.


Let's start at the beginning shall we....

Taxi driver of the year...does not go to any driver in Xi'an. I feel for taxi drivers, but here, they can all bite me. I will never go back to this city based purely on the taxi drivers alone. Lowlifes.

Xian..city of smog. The grey view from our hotel window. So inspiring.

Crappest meal eaten so far in China goes to this fantasyesque "restaurant". I ordered noodles...I still don't know what I was actually served. Please note the chain on the side of Marcus' chair - yup, they were swings.

The square across from the hotel turned into community centre come nightfall. Lots of people out and about, men making popcorn and the best bit...

Little kiddies having rollerblading lessons!

When the sun goes down, China really comes alive. One of the good things about China is that if there's a square or open space, you can almost be assured that all the local Chinese families will come out and do things from dancing to rollerskating, tai chi, excercises, singing, you name it. It is so utterly different to what we are like back home in Australia. Here is the centre fountain square area outside our hotel. It was still so hot at night and people were wading in the fountain itself while teens and kids of all ages rollerskated around it. It was very enjoyable walking around amongst all this, there was really a relaxing and enjoyable atmosphere.

After two days pretty much holed up in the hotel, we had managed to recuperate enough belief in humanity to attempt to get to the Terracotta Warriors. It was a cinch getting there. However we were both in such foul moods that I have to say we didn't really find it the awe inspiring place you're supposed to. Well, that and you've seen it a hundred times on telly.

They were very interesting to see though, we marvelled at how their faces were all individual and the painstaking work that must go into unearthing them. I can't believe the pompousness of one man to build all of this for his afterlife. You sure hope it helped it.

Brilliant shot by Marcus, somehow making the archer look as though he is moving.

The following day we ventured out to the muslim quarter. Ho hum. Do I sound cynical? We searched for the mosque though, which was on some really beautiful grounds. We were there at one of the prayer times and saw a whole pile of eldery muslim men shuffling out of the mosque which gave a very serene feel to the place.

These little black and white slippers are worn by so many people, often poor and often tradies (oh the nightmares workcover would have in this country), I have one little boy in the Junior school who wears these. He's one of my faves so I always smile when I see these little shoes.

So after 4 days we were very eager to get out of the city. This was more difficult than we thought, and we ended up having to bribe a taxi driver to take us to the train station. Our train was delayed but we eventually got on board. Here is what I slept next to all night. Everytime we hit a bump or lurched I imagined this bowl of seeds and bourbon hitting me on the head.

The view from my bunk in the morning in our open carriage. The boy to the right shared the bunk with his mother..because you know, why would anyone spend money on comfort or the sanity of your cabinmates. Sigh. We dubbed him the most annoying child in China, but this was premature as we had yet to meet the child on our next train. This kid either ate with is mouth open (to the point where he was sitting there staring at me whilst slurping and eating and I got so annoyed I started making the same slopping face back him, noises and all, so loudly that he actually shut up for about a minute and a half. I think out of fear of the crazy white lady) or sat on the bed making noises. As in "daaah, daah" type noises for oooh, say 30 minutes at a time. I started to think he was simple, but no, he was just a shit. At least he slept through the night...

(Postscript hours later...the more I wrote about Xi'an, the more angsty I felt. I should point out that the above kid was actually bored out of his brain, considering his mum seemed to have brought along a text book for him to read and nothing else to entertain him for 15 hours. So in reality, he wasn't THAT bad.)

And now some funnies....

Next to the hotel was a dentist. Nothing like a bit of privacy!

Love the granny with her "freak.com" handbag. So long as it has English on it, it's cool. Doesn't actually matter what the English says.

Mmh..seafood AND porridge!

Best t-shirt ever. Sadly it was only a kids' size. If they had have had an adult one I would have bought it, because you know, I do feel happiness when I eat a potato.

And lastly, I nearly wet myself when I read this in the illustrious English newspaper "China Daily". I hope it brings you as much joy as it did me.