Where have all the Chinese Gone?

Remember that "cowboy" song in the '90s by Paula Cole?

ANYway....

Last week we got a pleasant surprise - both of our schools have exams at the end of the month. Why is this a good thing, you may ask? Because Matt and I don't give exams! So, we get the three testing days off (yes, they have tests all day for three days)! Unexpected five day weekend - Whoo Hoo!

We first thought that we were going to try to go to Lanzhou. But when we went to buy train tickets, they did not have any more available. Since it was an overnight train we didn't want to risk it by just buying a ticket that will get us on the train but no seat/bed AND we didn't want to lose a day by waiting until the next day SOOO...

Hello Yinchuan!

The last time we were in Yinchuan, it was more of a hectic visit and we were not able to really see anything or enjoy the city. So, we wanted to give the good ol' provincial capitol another shot. We boarded the bus in the afternoon and began the bumpy trip up to the city.

The bus let us off at the same hotel that we had stayed at before - The Gulou Hotel. It's a pretty comfortable place, clean and has most excellent showers! The first night there we had a quest - to find the pizza restaurant that we saw when we were hoofing it around the city last time. The problem was that we just couldn't remember what direction it was from the pedestrian mall. So we started to walk - past the chicken burgers at Dico's, past the mashed potatoes at KFC - we got to the corner and Matt looked right, I left and whaaa (that angel appearing sound effect) - the glowing neon sign of Napoli's was shining bright in the night sky.

We entered the restaurant and were quickly greeted by the super friendly staff. We paid for the meal up front and were a little confused as to what we were supposed to do next. We wanted pizza. We were seated at a table and we were trying to figure out how to order when we saw what we were supposed to do. Help ourselves! There was a buffet of pizza and other food that we could indulge in.

Now, I don't know if you in the States can fully appreciate this, but at the fast food restaurants that we have been to here, they clear your tray for you as soon as you finish eating. They will sometimes bring you your food. The wait staff does everything for the customer - even pour your soda from the bottle and wait to refill it when your glass is only a quarter full. So, to finally get to heap whatever you want on our plate was kind of a treat for us.

Load 'em up!

I ate like a true pig.

No, really. I kid you not.

I piled up my plate, sat down, face down close to the food and inhaled. Pizza - more importantly cheese! Breaded onion rings! french fries with real ketchup! salad (I haven't had a real salad since I left the states)! soda! pasta! minestrone soup! AND real, freshly ground espresso!

Ahhh...after 3 plates of food (I'm sure that we disgusted the wait staff with our gluttony). We were finished and needed to beach ourselves on our beds at the hotel. So, we waddled back and shut ourselves in for the rest of the evening (we watched a truly terrible movie about Korean marathon runners in LA).

The next day we went out to see some of the sights in Yinchuan. The drum tower was right across the street from our hotel (so we saw that), we walked down to the Yuhuang Ge (Yuhuang Pavilion) but it is currently under renovation, so we couldn't go in or really see it as it was covered up by scaffolding. We found the foreign language book store and picked up some teaching materials and other books there. Then we headed toward the Regional Museum and Xi Ta (Xi Pagoda).

On the way to the museum and pagoda, we decided to stop so Matt could get his hair cut. He didn't want to get it done in Guyuan because of the attention it would attract so Yinchuan was his opportunity. They took Matt up to wash his hair, while he was upstairs, the head stylist made his entrance. He whisked off his jacket and his assistant caught it. She then ran over to a silver box and unlocked it and presented him with his tools. He dramatically unrolled the bundle and whipped out his scissors.

Matt's hair cutting team all stood around the stylist and watched as he went to work on Matt's noggin. After an HOUR, he was finished and they washed Matt's hair again and then he styled it - soon to be covered by a baseball cap.

So, finally, on to the museum and pagoda. Luckily the grounds were really close from the salon (just about across the street). We paid our admission and entered the park. Eerie. We were the only ones there. No one but Matt and I (and the workers). They would unlock all of the halls just for us. We climbed up to the top of the pagoda alone. No crowds, no pushing. Strange.

When we were finished we caught a cab to the Hai Bao Ta (North Pagoda). Same thing happened. We paid our admission, went inside and we were once again alone. Alone in China?! We really, truly had the whole place to ourselves. We walked up the stairs to the top of the pagoda - no crowds. Unobstructed pictures, weird.

Mid-afternoon we decided to try to arrange a tour out to see Xixia Wangling (Mausoleums of the Western Xia). The agency we found had no English tours, so they offered to help us rent a car and driver. So, off we went! After a little bit our driver pointed out a sign for a tour we could go to sometime - to see the areas and sets that Zhang Yi Mou (Johnny Mo - for you film buffs) uses in his movies. Then he pointed at the fields - dotted across the landscape were these mudbrick piles. Beautiful!

We got to the site and were put on a golf cart that would take us out there. First, they stopped at the museum. The museum was okay and had signs in English so Matt and I were able to get something out of the exhibits, but the tour was all in Chinese. So, we finished up early and ditched the tour group. We then went to the "art exhibit". When we entered we both groaned, more bad dioramas - we just want to see the mounds! We asked around and were eventually pointed in the right direction.

We dashed out of the "art exhibit", past the stele garden and focused on getting to the mounds while the light was still good. They built a walk way up to the biggest of the mounds. Gigantic. As we walked up to the mound, Chinese fighter planes were flying in formation right above us. The contrast between the earth-colored mound and the cloudless blue sky was quite striking. We walked...ran up to the mound and stood in it's shadow, mouths open in awe and excitement. The landscape was beautiful! The Helan Shan mountain range was the backdrop to these amazing tumuli. The sun was beginning to set and we had to hurry back to meet our driver. So we said a quick goodbye and walked back to the cart.

That evening we decided to try to find a dumpling place for dinner. In the front window of the restaurant they had a bunch of people sitting at a table making dumplings as fast as possible. We stopped to watch for a little bit and, whoops, production stopped. All of the dumpling makers were watching Matt. We went inside and ordered our jin (weight measurement) of dumplings. On the way out, Matt caused another slow down in production, because, well, he's white after all.

The next morning was a bit of a kicker - etiquette is quite different here - we woke up to people yelling in the hall right in front of our door. Seriously, yelling just for the sake of yelling - there were no discernible words in what we heard. After the yelling, someone just decided to try to barge into our room and sell us water. Hey, why not? After all it's my fault because I forgot to put out the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door knob - by all means just unlock the door and come on in!

We decided to take it easy - we went DVD shopping, grocery shopping (found peanut butter), and had lunch at...Napoli's! So, nice and overly full, we boarded our bus and headed back to Guyuan.