The Chinese Bellagio...

Megan and I managed to take the overnight train to Xi'an without too much drama.  I will say that on the way to the train station we saw a whole new side of Beijing with fancy hotels and lots of lights.  Plus in the dark you couldn't see the smog...actually it makes me wonder in most of the Chinese has ever seen the stars....but I digress.  I will also say that the Beijing main train station is one of the craziest public places I've ever been.

We didn't know what to expect from the 6 bed (bunks 3 high) sleeper cars, but we were pleasantly surprised.  After I determined that climbing into my top bunk (about 7 ft up) over the other 4 men in the car was not appropriate in my skirt, the rest of the evening went without a hitch.

Xi'an was much more pleasant than Beijing as it was less alienating and had a little more character.  We wondered around and did so museums for the day but the highlight was definitely a massive light/music/fountain show.  Every night at 9pm they complete this show in front of the town's large Wild Goose Pagoda (no one seems to have the word of why the goose is involved in the title).  The show was very professionally done and reminded me of the Bellagio fountain.  The big twist was that a huge crowd showed up (I believe every event in China draws a huge crowd by the very nature of a place where the small cities have 5 million people) and a ton of people were playing with the fountain jets in the very shallow fountain during the show.   It was quite entertaining to watch.

In Beijing if someone approach us speaking English they were trying to get us to buy something (always drastically overpriced), but in Xi'an we got generally friendly people who were practicing their English.  You also get lots of people pointing and staring at the giant white girls, since we've learned that staring is not considered rude in opera, strip clubs, and, most relevant to this topic, China.