My trip to Xi'an is starting out great so far!!! We started off the day with breakfast and orientation (boring, but needed to be done). After orientation, we all went out to visit the Bell Tower and Drum Tower. Each tower has exactly what it is named after. At the Bell Tower, you can pay to ring the bell and at the Drum Tower, you can pay to hit the drums. For each time you hit the drum, there is a significance (i.e. luck, fortune, blessing, etc). From the Bell Tower, you could get a great view of the city! The Bell Tower use to tell the time for the people in the city (not sure if it still does).
We also walked around the Muslim Quarter. It's kinda like a flea market...people out selling things on the streets. Supposedly, you can bargain down the price to 1/3 to half the asking price. I tried to bargain for something and the guy wouldn't budge...I think his price was already low. He wanted 5 yuan for the item and wouldn't decrease his price. When he wouldn't bargain, I went and checked with a few other places. The prices: 7 yuan, 8 yuan, and 20 yuan!!! Ridiculous on the price differences. I didn't really want to buy anything anyways...too much to take to the panda place and back. I'll buy stuff before I leave for Shenzhen/Hong Kong.
It's funny to walk around with the other volunteers. Since most of them are Europeans, the Chinese people would stare and some will take pictures (there aren't as many tourists in Xi'an). There was one gentleman that we kept running into and he would keep taking our pictures. When one of the girls spoke with him, it sounded like he was taking pictures for his job. Hope these pictures don't end up where they shouldn't be!!
We came back to the volunteer house for dinner after being in the hot sun all afternoon (it's just as hot as Cambodia!). At the house, there is a lady that will clean and cook for us. She's here everyday to prepare our meals and clean the rooms. There are also two staff members that stay in the house with us. It's nice to be "pampered" and not have to worry about cleaning! :)
After dinner, we went to watch a water show at the Big Goose Pagoda. They had water "dancing" to the same rhythm as the music. There were tons of people there and some were playing in the fountains. We went down to where the water was coming out and a couple of the guys went to play in the water. The rest of us got wet when some of the Chinese people diverted the water and it hit us. We had a great time though and had to walk around to dry off before we could grab a taxi back to the volunteer house.
I'm trying to practice my mandarin with the staff here. I learned how to say "I'm in Xi'an doing volunteer work" this morning. :) The taxi drivers here don't speak English and some don't read either...so it's been hard trying to get around unless we can tell them where we need to go.
I've definitely decided to work on the panda project for just 2 weeks. After watching the orientation video this morning on the other projects, I really wanted to spend my last week working at the Heart to Heart kindergarden class. The school was started by a former opera star in China. When her son was diagnosed with austism at 9 years old, she retired from opera and opened up a school without really knowing much about how to care for austistic children. She's done really well with the help of everyone around the community (including help from the experts on austism)...there are now two locations. The orphanage project (Starfish project) interests me as well, but I won't have enough time.
