We'd heard about a free tour run by the hostel and so had arranged to go with Emma and James. James was staying at the sister hostel down the road and so, after he'd shown off his fancy room and massive shower, we headed to Shaanxi History Museum with the rest of the group and our lovely guide, Angel.
Angel was a Chinese history student and voluntarily ran the trips whenever she had the time. She was really very sweet and worked very hard trying to explain the exhibits in the museum to us. There was a Malaysian guy on the tour who she asked to help out translating once in a while but she did a valiant job. The museum was huge and so we spent the most time focusing on just a few dynasties, including the Qin and the Han. It was interesting but we were quite tired and it was dark and hot so we struggled to maintain focus.
Angel then took us for lunch, which was great because she ordered for the table and we just picked what we wanted. Most of it was pretty nice and it was really good to know that we were definitely going to be able to eat something we liked without it being veg noodles. There were still a few odd bits though and Matt bravely made his way through a funny looking clear soup containing spam and some pretty hideous looking preserved duck eggs without wincing too much.
We chatted some more to Tracy, an American girl who was in China teaching English at one of the places that we plan to go, and her parents, Tom and Diane, who were over visiting. It was interesting to learn more about teaching English overseas and I found myself wishing that I had got my TEFL under my belt before we came.
After dinner, Angel pointed us in the direction of the Big Wild Goose Pagoda and mentioned that there was a fountain show there which started at 4. The group split up a little and we explored the surrounding park with Emma and James and stopped to watch the hundreds of kites being flown in the nearby square. It was a sunny day and we spent a while pointing out our favourite kites and our favourite people flying them. The winner was a monk with a big yellow smiley kite.
Being around so many kids, I also noticed that I am becoming desensitised to the fact they are all bare-bummed. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before Chinese people have this odd belief that it is better for a child's health if they leave their bums and bits exposed. Babies are potty trained early and have splits in the groins of their trousers so that fresh air can circulate. This was particularly odd to see in Beijing when it was -6 degress and the kids were wearing clothes several inches thick but had their bare bums on freezing cold stone benches when they were sat down. Now we've been here a while, I hardly find it strange when a see a little todger hanging out or a bare bum in the air when a toddler falls over.
Anyway, the fountain show was spread over a huge area and was actually quite impressive. The fountains 'danced' for ages to the classical tunes and there were lots of people watching and enjoying the show. Most of them totally ignored the signs to stay out of the fountain area and walked in the middle, blocking the view, but it did mean that we got to see a few people pelted with water so that made up for it a little.
Since it was St. Patrick's day, the sister hostel down the the road were having some celebrations in the evening and we decided to spend the evening down there. Our hostel was having 'traditiona games night' though so we hung around to learn how to play Mahjong first. It's quite like rummy and not really a complicated game but the tiles had Chinese characters and the guy explaining wasn't very clear so it was quite a challenge to get the hang of it. Thankfully, I had the fabulous Emma on my team. Matt was trying to look up the rules online as we played but there are so many regional variations that it wasn't much help to him.
When we finally got to the sister hostel, James was gutted because we'd missed the Chinese girls in sparkly, green, skintight outfits Irish dancing and the "consonant free" covers of Adele songs. It was a fun night though. The hostel had run out of the beer we liked so we kept getting into trouble for sneaking it in from the supermarket and we got to chat to lots of interesting people. I played table football and can now see the fun in it, although I'm really not very good and scored a couple of own-goals.
We were quite merry by the time we got back to our own hostel. The doorbell was broken so we thought that we might have to go back for more but thankfully, we managed to get through to them on the phone. We don't use the phone much but it does come in very handy when we do and has saved us a few times.
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