People's Pepublic of China - Part 20 - Flying to Xi'an (Day 14 continued...)

Checking in at the China Eastern queue was another Slipnot mosh pit experience. After finally getting served by one of the check-in desks – a guy proprietarily placed his ticket and ID card on our desk – demanding to get served (whilst we hadn’t even got our boarding passes)… I need to learn some Chinese rude words and stat!

Ant – who was worried about being 10kgs over the luggage allowance – didn’t have anything to be worried about because we got on the flight (including bags) with no problems…

Although we were early for our original departure time – our flight was delayed due to “Poor weather at other…” (that’s all the sign would give us – it would cut back to the Chinese message before revealing the whole message in engrish).

To try and make the best of a bad situation – we chose not to watch the stewpid “Just for Laughs” clips on the airport TVs – instead checking out my Video Ipod with the one video we put on it – a Chaser’s War on Everything Episode… It seemed to work OK – but right before we left for China – I attempted to put the Star Wars Holiday TV Special on the Ipod (which would have been much funnier than the Chaser) – but alas – Itunes wouldn’t have any of this…

We finally left Guilin 2 hours after the original departure time. The crew announced that “Lunch” would be served – but a “Lunch” on China Eastern just consists of a packet of peanuts… A couple of hilarious moments on the plane included passengers getting up out of their seats (30 seconds before landing) just to have a bit of a stretch (before getting screamed at by the Chinese air hostesses). Also hilarious – were the people getting up out of their seats 10 seconds after landing… Maybe they could video tape this and show it as “Just for Laughs” because it was funnier than that French-Canadian crap.

At the airport – we quizzed the private shuttle service about getting to town but they were going to charge us extra for all of our bags. Nuts to that – so we caught a taxi instead.

Ant and I spent most of the trip discussing about how bad Chinese driving is and what needs to be done to fix it up. People here seem completely oblivious to anything else in the universe (including other motorists) when entering into roads or highways. They just assume they will be OK… Pedestrians just don’t have any rights whatsoever. If you are crossing a road in China – you are pretty much fair game to motorists. Motorists will only stop for pedestrians only if the pedestrian has flipped over the bonnet and through the windshield. Some people drive really idiotically slow (despite others driving at about 10 times their speed). Headlights seem to be an optional extra in cars which many drivers don’t partake. Headlights are also optional in heavy fog, smog, low or no light situations. People love to overtake, especially when there is a semi-trailer or a big bus speeding in the other direction, or overtaking around blind corners…


And to make matters worse (well in Xi’an anyway) – they have thrown roundabouts in the mix… Chinese roundabouts just don’t work!

Ant and I were also discussing how to cash in on the situation in China. Maybe we should open up a smash repair company or perhaps a Chinese driving school??

We also noticed that the smog was pretty bad in Xi’an. We couldn’t be 100% sure if it was fog (because it was pretty cold) – but I had the Captain Planet and the Planeteers themesong in my head. Why doesn’t someone call Captain Planet and the Planeteers to fix the problem in China…? They can use their special power rings to get pollution “down to zero” or something…

Ant was a little suspicious about the route the lady taxi driver was taking us… Our hotel (the Grande Mercure) was near the North Gate entrance to the city – but Ant swore he saw us pass “Exit to North Gate” about 50 times. We were also travelling on just about every ring road into town – making this the most expensive taxi fare in China yet! It was more than 200 yuan. The taxi driver also was going to drop us off at the wrong hotel (the Mecure instead of the Grand Mecure – duh!).

The Grand Mecure is in a gated community of Accor hotels at Rennin Square (or People’s Square in Xi’an). If you aren’t familiar with Accor – they are a French mob with hotels everywhere… Everything is themed so you got your five star Sofatel, your 4 and a half star Novatels, your 3-1/2 to 4 star Grand Mecure, your 3 star Mecures, your 2 star Hotel Ibis and your one star Formule One’s…. The gated community in Xi’an has a Sofatel, a “People’s Hotel” (legacy hotel which was in the complex before Accor moved in), a Grand Mecure and a Mecure… We decided to save some money and stay at the Grand Mecure (about $60 a night AUD) rather than stay at the Sofatel (over $100 AUD a night) – plus you get to use the Sofatel pool/gyme extra… These hotels are (we think) in an ex-Government block (hence the gated community feel) which have been refurbished into hotels. Our room was fairly impressive (for the cost) and was probably the nicest decorated room we have stayed at thus far in China – complete with sort-of-dodgy-wired-automatic room light thingys.

Wanting to know where the main shopping street was – we asked the somewhat over friendly concierge where can shop?? He replied the Sofatel… We also asked where can we eat? To which he replied – the Sofatel… This is soo a gated community.

Nuts to the concierge – we headed out through the main (and only) gate of the complex and stumbled across the main drag two blocks away from the hotel.

I was sort of thinking Xi’an would be this quaint little tourist town – with a somewhat surge in tourism due to the Terracotta Warrior discover back in the 70’s. However – Xi’an is a provincial capital with a population rivalling Nanjing (eg: millions of people).

For dinner – we decided to check out the May First Restaurant (right next door to the House Keeping Restaurant – real names). We sort of came to the conclusion that these restaurants are probably state operated. May First is sort of a fast food deal – where they have all the food prepared in bain-maries in front of you – and you just point and pay. You had to be a bit careful about what you order otherwise you might end up with a Goat Penis or Pigeon for dinner.

After dinner – we checked out a really bad women’s night market (and what we mean by “women’s” – is that all of the stuff was for women). The highlight (or lowlight) were all of the 100s of pairs of fluoro green and yellow Calvin Klein panties (some of them misspelt). Choice.

After quickly bailing on the dodgy markets – we headed to a DVD shop where they were selling the “Complete Series (1-9) of Sex and the City and the X-Files” in single DVD cases (not sure how they were going to fit 9 series of TV shows in the one case??). Ant bought a couple of knock-off DVDs for about 12 yuan each.

We had a really exhausting day – so we headed back to the Accor Gated Community to watch some TV. Surprisingly – we got BBC World at the hotel. Ant was saying something that the Chinese Government don’t like BBC (hence it wasn’t anywhere) – but appeared to be at the Grand Mecure in Xi’an. It made for a bit of a change from the repetitive CNN with its “After Jesus: The First Christians” and “Hajj: The Essential Journey” promotions running non-stop. I also checked out a bit of Arnie in Commando – although it was dubbed into Chinese – you could still get the gist.