Yesterday was a quiet day for me. I woke up, got on the internet for a few hours, and then went exploring. I finally wemt up the bell and drum towers. In the bell tower I saw a great show using gongs, a flute and some other exotic instruments. The drum tower had a great exhibit of furniture.
I also went to visit the great mosque, which is really a complex of buildings. There were some nice exhibits including a very old style sun dial. (There are few sundials in asia)
There was public concert in the big outdoor mall that is outside the bell tower, so I sat around there for a while listening while eating bannana chips.
But the highlight of the day was the evening. My friends from the night before came back to the hostel and we caught a cab to the big goose pagota. Outside of which there is the largest water show in asia every night. It was really cool. We also got some noodle soup (well its more like noodles in a chili oil and some onions and other things) which they treated me for (its a race for the check here, and when you don't speak the language you often lose). After the show we went to a cool bar, and then back to the hostel bar.
Ooh, but the water show....its really cool.
Anyway, a few more thoughts on xian. Xi'an is a city of 8 Million with about 50 universtities here. There is beginning to be a lot of outsourcing of programming here (I was told that the PhD's make only about $300/month) but the work is very boring and people move on. You would think that with better management and higher wages, you could develop a really good business where you are doing the design part of programming (which involves understanding the buisness needs) and make real money. In addition, the chinese government is giving sweet deals to new companies which include no rent for 2 years and no taxes for 5... (Any of my bilingual friends want to start a business?)
