Xi'an: Day 1

When we got to the hotel, our rooms weren't available yet, so they brought us to a charming room to rest in before a jam-packed day of sight seeing. The room was literally wall-to-wall beds, the paint was chipping off the walls, and there were dead mosquitos on the wall. Calling it a hellhole would be generous.

After seeing this room, we did not have high hopes for where we would be staying. Thankfully, our actual rooms were much nicer than this one.

A quick nap and then it was off to our first destination: the City Wall. Xi'an is an ancient city and is entirely surrounded by a brick wall about 12 meters high. We walked along the wall for a while and then checked out some of the exhibits in the interior of the wall.

We quickly learned that Americans are surprisingly few and far between in Xi'an, and, thus, we were approached many times throughout the day by Chinese tourists wanting to pose for pictures with us.

After the City Wall it was on to my favorite part of the day, the Terracotta Warriors, a testament to the power of Chinese rulers of the past.

So basically, if you were an emperor in ancient China, you could get people to do anything you wanted. The first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, ordered the construction of this army to guard his grave almost immediately after his ascension to the throne. He wanted to be able to rule an empire even in the afterlife.

There's more than 8,000 soldiers, all of them different from each other. There were discovered in 1974 by a farmer, and, ever since then, they've been working to dig out and reconstruct the statues, like a giant puzzle. It's sort of mind-boggling, isn't it?

After lunch, it was on to the Huaqing Hot Springs, a palatial estate where the emperor liked to relax with his favorite concubine, Lady Yang. Highlights: a giant, naked statue of the Lady herself and a tree that--according to our guide--would procure boyfriends for any that touched it. The jury's still out on whether the tree will ever return on its promise. One week later, still no boyfriend.

Our guide had arranged for us to attend a tea ceremony at one of Xi'an's famed tea shops. We got to sample the Lychee concubine tea, Ginseng oolong tea, and Dragon Well green tea. After a long day of sight-seeing, enjoying the hot tea in the cool air-conditioning was just what we needed.

We enjoyed another meal of local Xi'an cuisine and then, FINALLY, our day was officially over. We took our first (glorious) showers in more than 36 hours and were relaxing in our hotel room, when we heard whining. Enter: a kitten we took in and named Chairman Meow.

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after an exhausting day of sight-seeing, we were nearly passed out in our hotel room, when we hear whining. Enter: our newly adopted friend that we named Chairman Meow.

We're unsure if he belonged to the owners of the hotel or if he was just a stray. Either way, an adorable kitten is always welcome in my book.

Chairman Meow got a little too feisty, and since we weren't sure if he had rabies, we decided it was best to send him on his way. After more than a day and half with little-to-no sleep, it was bedtime.