Since I have been here for a couple of weeks, I (with the help of another) decided that it was time to be a tourist. I hadn't really taken any pictures yet and everyone was asking for them. So I hope you will be pleased...I am going to try and load them on photobucket, but today that has been a bit of a pain. Anyway. Me and a new friend (Brad-also recently arrived) decided to go out on our own on saturday and see what we could find. We started out in the village that is right next to our apartments and just kept walking until we found something cool. We saw lots of things that we hadn't before, but our main attraction was something we had passed, but had not yet ventured into...What you ask? The big Wild Goose Pagoda that is here in town. It seems as though the whole area including the pagoda itself was used (and sometimes still is used) for worship. Probably mostly buddhism and hinduism (sp?). It was really interesting. The pagoda itself is really tall and we went up to the very top. I told you it was an adventure! From the top of the pagoda you could see city for miles and miles....From there you can really tell just how large this city is. We went up and down and all around it was a really great day. The weather was beautiful which isn't extremely common here. Most of the time there is a haze over the city. Part of it is pollution and some of it is dust (xi'an is considered a part of the desert). Anyway, we also saw, from the top of the pagoda, one of the largest fountain shows in the world... I have heard it is really awesome at night, but I haven't gotten to experience that yet. We took our first taxi ride by ourselves and it went extremely well. We got to where we were going and then made it home later. I felt really accomplished after that...Brad's chinese is way better than mine so I let him do all of the talking. He is pretty awesome so I will write about him next...much love from china!
