the breakfast lounge of the Tang-La Hotel is quite nice.
PEK
->
XIY
Quite the mob of people waiting for luggage. 99% tourists.
aboard the tour 'short bus'
our guide
and her crazy but somewhat mesmerizing shoes.
I think our flight was delayed coming in so we missed lunch. Here we are making a pit stop for snacks.
Rou Jia Mo - Xi'an cuisine. It's kind of like pulled pork in a Chinese Bing - round flat bread
Xi'an has it's city walls intact.
And its colorful cast of sketchy men selling you maps and other touristy things.
On the Wall
Most. Decorative. Trash Can. Ever! So far.
Off the Wall. We are in what I believe is the Muslim Quarter of Xian.
treats
Hot salt churned walnuts.
Chinese Halal eats
walnuts and dates. walnuts and dates.
This guy had a crazy Mongolian or Kyrgyzstanny accent. The idea here is you pick out the skewers you want and he cooks them for you on his charcoal pit.
Cumin-y goodness.
5 eggs! who is gonna eat five eggs?
Sorts of oven with underwater fire exhaust system.
I want to call these Pork-Screws but given that we are in the Muslim Quarter, they are most likely made of something else.
Adjacent to what I'm calling the Muslim Quarter is the Tourist Quarter.
Where we dine at a supposedly famous dumpling restaurant. Xian and Central China is known for their dough. So dumplings, noodles, etc.
Appetizers - I quite enjoy the variety and healthy balance of food groups.
Lamest dumplings - only because they hyped these up with fancy stories and what not. They are just balls of dough in soup. No filling.
Enter the parade of fancy dumplings.
and more
and more
and even more
Christs...
The unfortunate sweet dumpling, overflowing with red bean paste.
In the end, the regular dumplings were our favorite so we ordered a few extra plates of these.
We ate on the tourist trap 2nd floor. Apparently the 1st floor is much better. That's gotta be where locals (including our guide) eat.
Chinese cowboy directing parking lot traffic? I should mention that traffic or rather just driving behavior in Xian is beyond crazy. Well, maybe Mumbai or Vietnam crazy, but it's just bonkers the way they drive out there.
Our hotel is... the fanciest Howard Johnson in the world? What the? I guess it's still a good strong American hotel brand in China. So good in fact...
They can afford a giant rotating sphere/platform with lights and a white grand player piano. wtf!
Ok. No complaints. P.S.
I'm rich biyatch!
2 comments:
Those shoes ARE mesmerizing. How did I not even notice them?
Also don't make fun of the sketchy map-selling man, AKA me in 25 years.
Although I can understand their powers reaching far and wide, you still would not have been able to see all the way from Shanghai.
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