Xi'an and Wuhan

          After many cultural experiences in Beijing, now we are heading to our new adventure in Xi’an. It was a first time for some of us being on a train. The train station was very busy. There was no such a thing called “personal space” here. We followed our tour guide to the assigned compartments. On this train, there was a room that people could smoke in there. Sometimes, the smoke was too strong that everybody could smell it. It was quite a cultural experience and challenging for some of us to breathe in the smoke for pretty much the entire train ride. After more than 11 hours of train ride, we finally arrived in Xi’an. Our tour guide was waiting for us in front of the train station. We took a tour bus to our hotel called City Hotel. The city was not as crowded as Beijing but it was still way too much people. Our hotel was in the middle of downtown so at night time, we could easily walked to some street vendors. We only had one night in Xi’an so most of us went on a walk around downtown. Some of us tried pomegranate juice. We could see people juicing the pomegranates. It tasted very sweet. The next morning, we went up to the City Wall to go on a bike ride. The City Wall was built in 1374 to protect the city from enemies. At each corner of the wall, there is a big station that allows traffics in and out of the city. Some of us rode tandem bikes while others enjoyed single bikes. The total distance around the city is approximately 8 miles. There’s also beautiful music playing while we were biking. After the ride, we went for lunch and then Muslim Street that has a local market. After spending hours bargaining to buy souvenirs, we traveled to the train station to move on to our next adventure. 

          We took another hard sleeper train to Wuhan, and this train was way much better than the one that we took in Xi’an. Another memorable cultural experience was that our train got delayed for at least an hour. There was no more available seat so we, foreigners, stood in the middle of the big crowd of people. Sometimes, we got some stares from some Chinese people. We lived in Huazhong University Science and Technology international dorm, some rooms were a little bit cold even when the heater was on. During a wonderful party with HUST students, we shared about our college experiences to the Chinese students. Besides, the students there shared their living and studying stories as well as performed their singing gift during a talent show. They treated us two meals in their college cafeteria during our stay there. The weather here was cold, but the people here were very nice. It was a short visit to the college but we will forever remember those students and their impacts on our perspectives. The next morning, we hopped on another train to travel to Hong Kong for a 10 days adventure here.

- Lucy and Hanh