Beijing / Xi'an 2008: Day 9 - Goodbye Wu Di, Hello Shopping (11/10)

I pre-dated this blog so as it is released I am currently flying from Taiwan to San Francisco.  But this blog pretty much brings me almost up to date.  Enjoy!

After the long day checking out the Terracotta Warriors, we ended up sleeping in for a bit.  However, we couldn't sleep too long since we had arranged to go meet up with Wu Di after his morning practice session with the Chinese National Team.

Being on the Chinese National Team is a big deal, but there are different levels of being on the team.  Wu Di's involvement with the team is to help with a demonstration/performance later in the month in Taiwan.  This is sort of a first step in getting to the point where they might select you to compete on behalf of China.

It is also a lot different than being a provincial team member, like he is with the Beijing Wushu Team.  As a national team representative, they are much stricter on what you can do, and as a result the national team tends to get sequestered away and not given much freedom to go out and enjoy themselves.  You give up your freedom, but you gain a lot of position and experience that is highly prized -- so I guess it is considered a fair trade for most athletes.

training hall for the National Team while in Xi'an

So, since Wu Di was sequestered with the National Team right after competing, he didn't have any chance to go out at night or socialize with us to celebrate his victory.  The best we could do was drop by his dorms in the afternoon and hang out with him for a bit.

He is sharing a room with Zhao Qing Jian, the other Beijing Wushu Team member (although he is pretty much all but retired from competition at this point) who is performing for the National Team in taiwan.  When we got there Ma Ling Juan, world champion spear competitor, was hanging out in their room too.

I was helping upload some photos I took to Wu Di's computer and x2 played cards with MLJ and ZQJ in the meantime.  Most wushu enthusiasts would probably have steam come out of their ears to be able to hang out and play cards with those two, but since x2 isn't a wushu person she was just hanging out with some other Chinese friends.

ma ling juan playing cards

wu di and zhao qing jian

wu di sequestered and imprisoned

After we left and said goodbye to Wu Di and his dormitory jail cell, we made our way to another place I had found out about on Wikitravel.org.  Bai Hui Market, which is basically Xi'an's version of San Li Tua'r or the Silk Market in Beijing, but a bit cheaper.  x2 went crazy with her shopping and I got a few small things like gloves and a couple games for my handheld game console.

We also got some food at one of the many delicious street vendors there.  So much good food on a stick for so cheap.  Xi'an is a great place to eat.

squid on a stick

cheap shopping

After shopping we headed back to the hotel and arrived just in time to meet up with Zane and go grab some dinner in the Muslim Quarter. It was our last night in Xi'an so we got some really delicious yang ro jia mo (lamb in a bun, basically) and then spent the night packing up for the next day's travel.

delicious lamb burger

zane approves of the meal

Xi'an was a lot of fun and I still feel like I didn't really scratch the surface of what I could have done there.  I will definitely have to add it to my list of places to visit the next time I'm traveling around China.  I highly recommend you do the same!