Day 14

Yesterday we landed in Xi'An (pronounced "shed-on") and had a one hour memorable cab ride to the hotel.  I won't bore you with the details of the road- let's just say Diane whispered to me " I'm never going to get used to the way they drive here" to which I responded "god I hope not!!!".  We checked into the Citadines Apart'Hotel" and found our room quite nice - more of a mini-suite.  It has two bedrooms and two baths so we are all stating in one big "apartment" sort of.  The beds are getting softer too.  By the time we get to Beiging they should be just like "Grama's feather bed" ! Uh huh. We headed out to walk around and get a bite.  It was late but we wanted to get in what we could.  The Muslim  quarter was amazing. It is streets with vendors down both sides and the middle which makes for very thin isles, pedestrians, cabs and scooters.  During the evening they fly kites.  Not the big Chinese kites you might be thinking about but these liuttle kites maybe about the size of a big dinner plate.  The thing about these is that they string about a hundred together and you have this long "line" of kites in the air.  It is really pretty cool looking.  At night there are a few guys who bring telescopes out.  Big telescopes. Like ten feet long telescopes.  They bring them on trailers and set them up and for ten kui you can look at Saturn.  We went to a place Yang Li (or "Jenny" as we know her), my Manderin mentor suggested for a dinner of tradional Mutton stew.  I thought it was pretty good but wasn't crazy about the bread they break up into it.  The place is very famous for it's Mutton stew and it was pretty packed.  Di kept pissing off the waitress because she kept ordering stuff they were out of - like that was our fault!!! Back at hotel we went to bed anticipating our date with the Terra Cotta Soldiers in the morning.