then there was our field trip..

in the midst of our long holiday, Fudan organized a field trip for foreign students. Among the places they provided as options were Beijing, Xian, Guilin, Zhang Jia Jie and maybe some more. I chose to go to Xian because.. it's a long story so let's leave it at that!

Naturally, we were all excited! Some people were going to Beijing, some Zhang Jia Jie, the eight of us (Prim, Tiff V., Cheng, Sigh, Diana, Christine, Celcius and me) were Xian bound. After the orientation (which I, together with Sigh did not attend), we learned that we were actually going to get the chance still to go to Yan'An which was another province 5 hours away from Xian. Just cool, I guess.

So April 6 came and we were meeting the whole Xian group in front of the Guang Hua building. When we got there, it was almost time! We just really had to go get ourselves some Coco and food before we left for the 16-hour train ride to Xian! That's one common trait of Filipinos we eventually concluded during the duration of our trip. "Ang Pinoy, takot magutom!" We were the only ones eating small snacks in the bus full of Japanese, Russians, and Koreans! If we weren't asleep, we were eating! Thus, the conclusion.

We arrived at the train station! Boy, that train ride was just.. It was the most difficult part of the trip, if you ask me!! The beds were bad, they looked dirty! The bathrooms were worse, you will want to avoid it as much as you can. And the smell.. oh, the smell was just the worst part of it! True, we did need our face masks after all. But not for Xian. Rather, for the ride going there because of the wonderful smell we had to go through! White-flower party we had!!

I got the bed on the topmost bunk because I was okay with whatever. At first sight, it was really bad. Because I had to climb up, and the head space was not that spacious so if I wanted to sit, I always had to bend my back! Turned out, it was a blessing in disguise. Because then I didn't have to stay up all night because people were passing by or making kapa your bed (as was the case with Prim) or be awakened by the different kinds of smell you'll encounter in your sleep (as was what happened to Pinky and Sigh). Sigh even woke up in the middle of the night to spray perfume.. and as for Pinky, she slept with her mask on.

16 hours after we woke up in Xian. Because the train was delayed, we didn't get the chance to drop by the hotel to leave our stuff and take a bath! GREAT!! JUST GREAT!! Tour without taking a bath or even changing our clothes! And we thought this was a field trip?? Nobody told us it was medyo Amazing Race/Extra Challenge-ish type of trip!!

Putting that aside though, the trip was really nice!! Xian is definitely a very picturusque city! A nice mix of modern and history as we described it to friends eventually. It was thrilling, exciting. We were always on the run to capture the sights. Given the chance, I think I will probably go back once more to Xian. Yan'An, on the other hand, was a completely different matter.

Yan'An was pretty cool. But you see, we had to travel 5 hours just to get there. And personally, I feel that Yan'An would have been better if, like Sigh and Celcius, you really know the history of China! In my case, I only know of Mao Tze Dong. So that after our first stop, all the rest just really looked the same to me. In short, that was when I got bored already.

One thing cool about Yan'An though were the stone houses. Literally, they were made up of stones right in the middle of the mountains. Don't think like Batanes stone here, it was more like a mountain, then there's a hole, that hole is a house!! Definitely one of a kind! It was also here where I saw two mountains connected only by a bridge (the tallest in Asia) and a train passing by the two mountains! I appreciated this more than the history stuff.

After this we went back to Xian where we got to spend the day on our own. Xian is truly breathtaking! Love it!!

The last day we went to a Buddhist Pagoda in Xian, one of the oldest architecture standing still. This is perhaps one of Xian's strength in tourism. Because it is architecturally breathtaking!! Something the Philippines should learn perhaps? Then there was this one mountain we went to, Li Shan! I was particularly giddy and excited for this! When I woke up (coz it took us 1 and a half hour to get there), I realized we were already on top of the hill. This reminded me so much of the stuff we used to do back home in Naga during summers when "the parents" have time or when we have guests! So I was really excited! Not to mention that the place was really cool!! So that we were once again able to visit another place coz this was somewhere outside Xian. Where that somewhere is? I really don't know as well! Oh, and we also dropped by this "souvenir store". Normal, usual, tourist guide racket, one of the worst I've seen!!! I swear. DO NOT GO!! YOU'LL BE BETTER OFF EXPLORING XIAN ON YOUR OWN!!

Our trip, all in all, was okay. It was cheap so I guess it was worth it! Except for the trains part! It was expensive though, one way ticket costs 300+RMB. So make that two, that's almost 600 or 700 tops. Plus, the hotels where we stayed were not bad either. The food was always plentiful. But the taste is of course, a completely different matter. Thus, our conclusion no. 2: "EGG: ang universal taste". So that, we always looked forward to our daily servings of egg for breakfast coz there, rinarasyon nila ang egg. But you can't have two nga lang! Just one. So we looked for a convenience store every night. No matter how lazy we were, we always had to go out and look for a convenience store to buy food and water coz we were always hungry.

Thus, while roaming the streets of Xian and Yan'An, we were able to reach our conclusion no. 3: "ang style ng mga beggars, anywhere in the world, ay universal din!"

So much for our 6 days, 5 hour bus rides, 4 conclusions, 3 cities, and 2 train rides to make up for 1 hell of an adventure!!