杭州 hangzhou

where we stayed: hefang hostel; pretty clean and unique

where we visited: west lake and six harmonies pagoda

food: lots of street food, though not unique to hangzhou..saw a lot of xi'an street food, which was interesting because i just went there; tried the famous sweet and sour fish, but didn't like it too much

the city was really clean relative to other cities in china, and the people seemed nice, though edmond and i felt scammed into going to a tea village :/ we walked a lot while we were there gah so tired! but we saw the lamps depicted on the 1 kuai bill!

..edmond left last week and it's finals week :( i've been super lazy the entire semester, and now it's time to whip out a bunch of papers. and then i'm off to cambodia, thailand, and taiwan!

海南岛 Hainan Island

three days of sun and seafood! as relaxing as the island should have been, i still got really tired. anyway, look! edmond came to visit me :)

xi'an 西安

Day 1 (5/6) Drum Tower; Muslim Quarter

We arrived in xi'an super late so didn't get to do much the first day. When we got off the plane, we squeezed 5 people into one crazy taxi. We literally screamed every five minutes as the driver made the scariest turns. Once we dropped off our stuff in our hostel, we ventured out for food. We headed to the muslim quarter. The place was extremely dirty. There was trash all over the ground, but we also found out that we arrived too late, which explained the dirtyness.

Day 2 (5/7) Xi'an City Wall; Muslim Quarter

We started the day off with some fatty 肉夹馍. They're like hamburgers, but greasier and with no veggies. yum. With all the unhealthy calories in our systems, we biked on the city wall of xi'an. The ride was extremely bumpy and fun! We got to enjoy a nice view of the city. We then headed to the muslim quarter again. Hahaha. This time it was much much cleaner. The place is probably a lamb-lover's heaven. There were a ton of skewers and lamb noodles. I opted for everything that was not lamb (not a fan of the rank odor). The persimmon cakes, chives&egg pancakes, and prune juice were my favies.

Day 3 (5/7) Terracotta Army; Muslim Quarter; Club 1+1

so amazing! We saw the first intact soldier and the farmer who discovered the tomb! Each of the soldiers were unique.

Our tour guide (the lady in the first photo) was obsessed with Jack. She was cute and funny ahhaa

For dinner, we went to the muslim quarter again; cheap & satisfying

At night we went to club 1+1. I saw the wildest Chinese locals ever. They were interestingly extremely different from partying locals in Shanghai. They definitely looked like they were having a lot more fun ahah