26 April 2018
Around the bottom of the wall
The morning markets of Xian
Today I am going to Chongqing, I have been there before, that journey will likely be described in laborious detail below.
For some unknown reason, all the trains to my desired station in Chongqing were canceled, I knew this a month before when I tried to buy a ticket only to find on the day of placing the order the services had vanished. It seems on my exact day of travel, services to Chongqing from Xian are moving from one station to a different brand new station, so many services are cancelled, and buying a ticket was not easy. Therefore I am departing Xian very late, 2:20pm, and making a 5.5 hour journey to Chongqing, but I digress, I will describe that in detail further below. Before that description happens, my late departure meant I had time for one last lap of Xian.
My final lap of the great city of Xian took me around part of the bottom of the great city wall. Not the whole way again, although I would have if I had time!
It was very beautiful, enhanced by the great weather today. I saw all the usual Chinese park life attractions as you will see below.
Before heading to the wall I did a morning stroll through the Muslim quarter and observed sheep and other other creatures still with most of their flesh before they are carved laboriously (word of the day) into small chunks suitable for feeding onto sticks and char grilling. Actually there were a lot of butchers along here carving up entire beasts in the street for all to see, very interesting.
After my lengthy stroll I had just enough time left to return to my hotel and add a bit of charge to my phone in preparation for the 5.5 hour high speed train ride south to the Chongqing megalopolis.
The main muslim food street, surprisingly many things were open quite early. You have to get up pretty early in Xian to not be able to buy parts of a sheep on a stick.
Most of the people living here were airing their captive birds in the sun.
I wonder if these sticks will be sitting here all day in the sun, adding some flavour from the passing smokers and street sweeping machines?
Notice they use fresh sticks, not the machine prepared skewers you would normally expect.
I am really happy with this photo, great light, really captures the street action. All the scooters are electric, theres no such thing as a petrol scooter anymore.
The local recycling man is probably thrilled he found a washing machine or whatever that thing is to collect.
Just one of about 50 butcher shops airing their delicious meats.
Now I start my amble around a quarter of the wall, here is the moat. The moat was nice and did not smell at all. Many people were enjoying the moat.
I once again defeated everyone at ping pong. I am still undefeated.
To celebrate my undoubted ping pong superiority, a new dance has been created in my honour.
Actually its the same dance every grandma group does. I think I know it well now through my detailed and ongoing study of the dancing habits of Chinese citizens. I am writing a book.