Well the month of October is flying by already. I can't believe we are already halfway through! I have been so lucky to be able to spend the first part of October with my family here in China. My mom, dad, sister, and brother arrived in Shanghai on the afternoon of October 6th. They were all very tiered after their flight. I was very lucky to have some friends here in Shanghai greet them with me at the airport. They also brought their car, which made the going to and from the airport so much easier. We went to the Ramada Hotel in Shanghai, which ended up being a nice comfortable hotel, though the beds were super small. That is the one thing that my family was not prepared for. I think they were thinking they would get the nice soft big beds like the ones in the American hotels, however China is very different in that regards. When we arrived at the hotel Claire and Jesse immediately fell asleep. While they were sleeping, my mom, dad, and I went back to my school so that they could drop some things off in my room and I was able to show them the back gate area of my school. I was also so happy to discover that the hotel we were staying at had this cafe called Cafe 85 which actually originated from Taipei; their coffee is good and reasonably priced and they have so many wonderful pastries. My mom and I stopped in their and grabbed ourselves some coffee. That night we all went to dinner at a very nice Chinese restaurant near our hotel. It was nice that the restaurant had pictures on their menu, so that my family could decide based upon that. After dinner, everyone was very tired, including myself so we all crashed at our hotel.
The morning of the 7th we had a very early flight to catch to Xi'an. I wanted to take public transit, but unfortunately since our flight was so early we weren't able to. Our flight to Xia'n was delayed about an hour, so we ended up waiting on the ground in the airplane, waiting for it to take off. We arrived in Xia'n about 11:30 , where we were then picked up by a driver who first took us to the hotel.
This was my second time going to Xi'an so I had a hotel in mind that my group had stayed at the last time I was there. Well, when we arrive at the hotel, I'm very confused because I remembered that it was in the center of the city. I tried asking the desk if they had another branch in the center of the city, but they told me this was the first branch that had opened in Xi'an. I was definitely a bit disappointed, but there wasn't much I could do since we were already there. The hotel ended up being very comfortable and quiet overall, and I was happy we stayed there. After settling in at the hotel, our driver took us to the center of the city. We first went to the city wall, which is a very historic old wall that wraps around for about 6 miles in the city center. When we first entered the wall, we were given a little tour inside their museum about Fenghsui and Pixu, who is a very important animal like god in the Chinese culture. He is meant to bring people money, if they keep him in their office, house, or bedroom. I found the tour to be very interesting. We all got a big hit out of this Pixu animal and then we came up with a new name for my dad and started calling him Pixu. After our tour, we all wanted to bike around the city wall, so we rented some bikes. They only gave us an hour to bike around the city wall, but that ended up being just the right amount of time. We all loved going around the city wall as it was a gorgeous sunny day, and it was so amazing to see the views of the city of Xia'n.
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